Choosing a Killer Font for Your Webstore

Fonts are important. That’s why choosing an effective font can make or break your ecommerce marketing strategy. God help you if you’re trying to create a cool look for your website and you go with Times New Roman or Courier New, or worse, something like Comic Sans or Curlz MT—the horror, the horror.

If visual design isn’t your forte, paying someone with the proper experience can be wise.  But you’ll want to know a few things before you shell out any cash to some custom web design guru in Helsinki who’s going to tell you what’s best for your business.

Fonts: The Least You Need to Know: Serif and Sans-Serif

There are two main classes of fonts: serif and sans-serif. Times New Roman (font of the New York Times) and Courier New (which looks like a typewriter) are both serif fonts. The serifs are those little feet and other protrusions you can see sticking off the letters. Sans serif, naturally enough, translates literally from French to “without serifs”, so they don’t have feet and other protrusions. They look a bit sleeker, but some people find them difficult to read. So, in general, the more normal serifs will portray your site as more old-fashioned and classical--and possibly more legible.  Serifs also tend to give your site some real pop.

You should also know the difference between proportional and non-proportional fonts. Non-proportionals are like Courier New, where each character takes up the same amount of space, like a typewriter. That’s why students use Courier New when they want to make a paper look longer.  But you’re not a desperate student, you’re a professional, so stick to the more professional looking, proportional fonts, which space the letters in a more aesthetically pleasing way.

Fitting Font to Site

So, obviously you should know the difference between serif and sans serif before you start hunting a font, but that can only get you so far. A few basic things to always keep in mind: the match between the font and your company’s products, and the match between your products and the lifestyle they promote, will enable you to make smart choices about which font to ultimately settle on.

When in doubt, get a second opinion.  The way your site looks can be an important solution for bringing your business success. And you can never be too precise in setting up any kind of ecommerce solution.