What Font Size and Typography Should a Business Website Use?

For most business websites, body text should be between 16 and 18 pixels, with no more than two fonts and strong contrast between text and background. Get those three things right and your site will be easier to read, easier to trust and easier to use on a phone. Typography sounds like a small detail, but almost everything on your website is text, so it quietly shapes how professional you look.

Why typography matters more than you think

People rarely say, “I love their line spacing.” What they do is leave a page that feels tiring to read. If your text is small, cramped or pale grey on white, visitors squint, give up and go to a competitor. Good typography does the opposite: it lets people take in your message without noticing the effort.

The right font size for body text

Sixteen pixels is the practical minimum for body copy, and 17 or 18 pixels is often more comfortable, especially for older visitors. Many themes still ship with 14 or 15 pixel text because it looks neat in a design mockup. On a real phone held at arm’s length, it is too small.

Headings should step up clearly from the body text. A simple guide is roughly 32 to 42 pixels for your main heading, 24 to 28 for section headings and 20 for sub-headings. Use fluid sizing where your theme allows it, so headings shrink gracefully on small screens instead of wrapping awkwardly.

Choose two fonts, not five

One font for headings and one for body text is plenty. Many good sites use a single font family in different weights. Every extra font adds visual noise and slows your page, because each one has to be downloaded.

• Pick a clear, readable body font. Plain sans-serif or a well-made serif both work.
• Use a heading font that matches your brand’s personality, but keep it legible.
• Limit yourself to two or three weights, such as regular, medium and bold.
• Avoid decorative or script fonts for anything longer than a few words.

Line length, spacing and contrast

Three settings do a lot of the work. Line length should sit around 50 to 75 characters, because very long lines make it hard to find the start of the next one. Line height should be about 1.5 times the font size for body text, which gives the lines room to breathe. And contrast needs to be strong: dark text on a light background, or the reverse, with a ratio of at least 4.5 to 1 to meet accessibility guidelines.

Light grey text is the most common offender. It looks elegant on a designer’s bright monitor and becomes unreadable in sunlight on a phone. If you are unsure, a free contrast checker will tell you in seconds. Readability is also part of making your site accessible, which we cover in more detail in our insights library.

Make your text easy to scan

Most visitors skim before they read. Short paragraphs of two to four sentences, clear headings and the occasional list let them find what they need. Avoid long blocks of centred text, which are harder to read than left-aligned text. Use bold sparingly, so it still means something when you do use it.

Keep fonts fast on WordPress

Fonts can slow a site down if they are loaded carelessly. Host your fonts on your own site where you can, rather than pulling them from a third party, and only load the weights you actually use. Modern formats such as WOFF2 are small and widely supported. If you use the block editor, most current themes let you set fonts and sizes once under the site editor’s typography settings, so every page stays consistent without custom code. If your site feels slow overall, our WordPress web design team can review the whole picture, and the Defyn Digital site has more on the performance side.

A quick typography checklist

• Body text is at least 16px, ideally 17 to 18px.
• No more than two font families.
• Line height around 1.5 and lines of 50 to 75 characters.
• Text contrast of at least 4.5 to 1.
• Headings that clearly step down in size.
• Tested on a real phone, not just a desktop screen.

Typography is one of those areas where small fixes make a big difference, and it is usually quick to improve on an existing site. Not sure whether your text is helping or hurting? Call us on 02 9834 4119 or get in touch and we will take a friendly look.