Fonts may not seem like a big deal, but they can have a surprisingly large effect on website speed. Since they are loaded across much of your site, heavy font files or too many font variations can slow things down more than you might expect.
The good news is that font optimization is often a quick win. Once you understand the basics, it is not especially difficult, and it can reduce unnecessary page weight without changing the overall look of your website.
Use the Right Font Format
One of the easiest improvements is using the right font file type.
Many people start with TTF because it is a common format, but it is usually not the best choice for website performance. For the web, WOFF2 is generally the most useful format because it offers strong compression and broad support in modern browsers.
For most current websites, WOFF2 can be the primary format. Add a WOFF fallback only if you have a real reason to support much older browsers.
You can convert a licensed TTF font into WOFF2 with a font converter. Before uploading a commercial font to a third-party service, check that its license allows conversion and web use. Here are two online tools:
Converting a TTF font to WOFF2 can reduce its file size substantially. The exact saving depends on the font.
Here’s a screenshot from the popular Poppins font that has been converted from TTF to WOFF and WOFF2.
A font file that starts out at almost 160 KB can often be reduced dramatically just by converting it into more web-friendly formats.
But why does the example also include WOFF?
Why Use More Than One Format?
A fair question is: if WOFF2 is the smallest, why not just use that and forget the rest?
WOFF used to be an important fallback for browsers without WOFF2 support.
WOFF2 support is broad in modern browsers today. A WOFF fallback may still make sense for a project with unusual legacy-browser requirements, but most small stores do not need to carry several formats by default.
For most current websites, WOFF2 is enough.
You can reduce the file size further.
Reduce the Font Size Even Further
There is another way to make fonts smaller: remove the characters you do not actually need.
Many fonts include large character sets, multiple languages, symbols, and extra glyphs. That is useful in some cases, but many websites only need a small part of that full set. If your site only uses English, for example, there is usually no need to load a font file packed with extra character ranges you will never use.
This process is called subsetting. It means creating a smaller version of the font that only includes the characters your site actually needs.
There is a manual way to do this and a simpler automated option.
Let’s start with the harder one first.
One manual option is a font editor such as FontForge. Open the font, remove the character ranges you do not need, and export a smaller webfont. This gives you control, but it is time-consuming and easy to get wrong if you are unfamiliar with fonts.
For the easier option, use a webfont generator.
Let us introduce the Webfont Generator of FontSquirrel. All you have to do is upload your fonts, change some settings, and download the font with the unnecessary characters removed. Fast and effective!
Here are the settings we changed:
Be sure to set it on the expert settings.
Font Formats: WOFF2. Add WOFF only if your project needs the fallback.
Subsetting: Custom Subsetting (choose the languages and characters you use on your site)
Language: English
Agreement: Confirm that your font license allows the conversion.
Here’s the final result:
We went from a 160kb TTF file to a 23kb TTF and an 11kb WOFF2!
And this is it for the optimization part.
Now that you have the correct file type and size, what else should you know?
Do Not Load Too Many Font Weights
Another common mistake is using too many font weights.
Font weights are the different thicknesses of a typeface, such as 300, 400, 600, or 700. The important thing to understand is that each weight is often a separate file. So if you use one font in three different weights, you may be loading three font files instead of one.
That adds up quickly.
For most websites, you do not need a large range of weights. In many cases, one regular weight and one bold weight are enough. Sometimes even that is more than necessary.
As a practical rule, try to keep the total number of font files low. For many websites, two or three files in total is already enough for a clean and consistent design.
Get More Out of Fewer Files
Before adding more weights, ask whether you really need them.
Often, you can create enough contrast with font size, spacing, and normal bold styling in CSS instead of loading another font file. That gives you more flexibility without adding extra weight to the page.
For example, if your body text uses a regular weight, your headings may not need a separate font file if standard bold styling already gives you enough emphasis.
This is one of the simplest ways to keep typography looking good without making the site heavier than it needs to be.
Pro tip: Every extra font weight can mean another file your visitors have to download. Fewer font files usually means a faster site.
Keep Things Simple
Font optimization is not just about file size. It is also about making sensible design choices.
Using fewer fonts and fewer weights usually helps performance, but it also often improves consistency across the website. Too many font variations can make a design feel busy and unfocused. A simpler font setup is usually easier to manage and easier for visitors to read.
That is why font optimization is one of those technical tasks that also supports better user experience.
In Conclusion
Optimizing fonts is one of the easier ways to improve website speed without changing much visually.
The main steps are straightforward: use WOFF2, remove unnecessary characters where practical, and avoid loading more font weights than you really need.
Each change may seem small on its own, but together they can make your site lighter and faster. And for an online store, that is exactly the kind of improvement worth making.