Regarding the Impact of Font Selection on SEO

As anyone who has used a word processor can attest, any change in the font size and style of a paragraph's contents will likely cause different words to wrap around to the next line, which in turn will cause the rest of the content to shift further along. Since a given text character occupies a number of pixels that is dynamically determined by elements such boldness, italics, and the font family, applying a different font to all characters in a paragraph can make the paragraph take up much more space despite retaining the same word count.

This is rarely an issue with text printed on word processor files, but it can amount to an unexpected issue for the user experience on a website. When a web page is loaded onto a user's browser window, its assets and data can be loaded conspicuously sluggishly if the user's connection speed is not ideal. Font styles may be among the last elements that get successfully parsed when a page is slowly loaded. This means that, for some users, a newly loaded web page will display its text with a default system font up until the intended font sent from the server side suddenly renders on the client side. What results is that the contents of the page will suddenly move around and change length and depth without the user having made any relevant input.

Recently announced changes to Google's SERP-relevant ranking algorithms make this an SEO issue in that it will result in a slight penalty for the search ranking the website would be getting otherwise. Surprisingly, it is currently not a straightforward procedure to set up a page so that it assuredly avoids delayed font downloading and processing. One way a web designer can minimize this is to have a choice font preloaded in time for the rest of the page's formation. Another is to have the site use a system font on the client's side, which will display instantaneously. Though the text may appear awkward based on the operating system of the user, it will prevent the delayed resizing issue. For more information click here https://simonhearne.com/2021/layout-shifts-webfonts.