The Dos and Fonts of Online Copywriting

All good online copywriters know the value of using different fonts to elicit different responses in their readership. It’s not rocket science to realise that writing in comic sans makes you seem wearingly wacky and choosing courier new will lend you the liveliness of an accountant.

Times New Roman on the other hand is rather formal and smacks of higher education institutions or local councils while Bradley Hand ITC makes you feel as though you’re being invited to a children’s party! Some fonts are just downright ridiculous and should be avoided at all costs because they either look far too silly or render your work virtually unintelligible.

Arial, Verdana and little sister Calibri are arguably the best fonts for body text because they are clean, easy to read and lack the austere feel of something like Times New Roman. Tahoma can also be useful to lend your wording a quirky or fresh feel but is best to avoid anything too overtly zany like harrington or Lucinda handwriting as they quickly become tiresome to a reader.

It’s generally thought to be recommendable to choose one consistent clear type face for your body copy and then a couple of slightly more exciting fonts for you headers and then stick to them across your medium. This is something that some online copywriters may have more control over than others, as it depends largely on your relationship with the designers who handle the CSS layouts for the websites you work on.

The size, colour, spacing, and case of your selected type face also require careful attention as these factors can really enhance or impede a reader’s desire to interact further with the material. This can become a particularly pertinent consideration when writing copy for the web as readers easily lose patience with high volumes of text, excessive or insufficient contrast and a disorganised layout on a screen.

Don’t be afraid to play around and to look at which fonts other well established websites favour too.