Can fonts affect SEO.. ?

[Guest]

This post is deleted!

[Alick300]

Hi James,

No it doesn't affect directly but could indirectly affect it through the user experience as you mentioned that 'a lot of which render horribly on my screen'.

Thanks

[georgehal]

Fonts directly affect the speed of your sites (because sometimes they cannot be rendered properly). Fonts not rendered properly = lower speed performance = bad user experience = less CTR and higher bounce rates. So yes they affect your SEO with:

• Speed performance (directly)
• User signals (indirectly).

[LoganRay]

Only if it's comic sans.

[benesmartin]

Actually, we did an A/B test for two different versions of fonts. One of them was regular sans-serif font and the second one was exactly comic sans. We were testing conversions (click on button) and bounce rate.

In both cases, the results were counter-intuitive: comic sans won in both tests. I think it's because our target group which are elderly people who are used to the 90's web design with the rotating images, fancy colors and crazy fonts.

So the take-away is: it depends!

[LoganRay]

HA! I was totally joking, but it's hilarious that you did this AND that the results came out in favor of the world's most hated font.

[EGOL]

Match the font with the character of your website.

A font that is well received on a humor site might damage the credibility of a medical advice site.

Then, you have the topics of C.R.A.P., content structure and typography, which I believe are very important.  See here.

The above is not SEO.   It is PO.   PO=people optimization

[LoganRay]

The line between SEO and PO is thinning every day as Google puts more and more emphasis on the searcher's journey through the entire inquiry>engagement>action process.