Small decision with great impact

As an operator of a WordPress blog you have to make many decisions at the beginning. Which hosting service should I use? Which theme fits my style? On the other hand, the decision which font size to use for your articles seems almost trivial. But you should never underestimate the effect that even small decisions have. By choosing the font (size) you can influence how your readers perceive your articles. That means you should think carefully about who reads your texts and which font and font size your readers like or even use. The Numara Software Case Study, for example, has shown what effect even a small change can have. Changing the font size from Arial 10pt to 13pt could contribute to an increase in the conversion rate of 133%. In addition, the size of the font also has an (albeit small) SEO effect. Because Google loves better user experience and bounce rates are lower.

Note: at the end of the text we show you a new way for your readers to choose their favorite settings!

How can you change the font size?

In WordPress there are, as so often, several ways to do this. In this post we present the easiest ones. You have to decide whether you want to change the default settings or only the font in a specific post.

How do I change the default font size settings in WordPress?

If you want to change the font size for your whole page, you set the size of the headlines and the body text. You can do this with the customizer of your theme: 

In the WordPress navigation go to Design > Customizer

Depending on the theme you have the possibility to edit the font size and type directly (usually under the point Theme Options) or you go to the point “Additional CSS” and add the following lines of code:

For headlines:

h1 {
font-size: 20px;
}

For paragraphs:

p {
font-size: 20px;
}

How do I change the font size in a specific WordPress post?

  • In the WordPress editor you can adjust the formatting for text passages by marking them and assigning a formatting (e.g. Heading 1) with the field in the upper left corner. You can read how to change the font sizes for paragraphs and headings in the previous point.
  • Another possibility would be to switch the editor to text and format the text that way. Example:
    • “style=”font-size:12px;”>This text would now be in font size 12.”
  • If you use a page builder (e.g. Elementor) for your pages and contributions, you can change the font size in each element under Style > Typography.

How can you let your readers decide what font size they want?

The effect of the font size has been explained at the beginning of this article. But it is also important to be aware that you can never satisfy all your users with a single setting. Therefore, consider letting your readers decide in addition in which font size they want to read the texts. If you would like to do so, you can test our free Text Zoom plugin and support that digital accessibility and personalization of the web is advancing for everyone. 

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