A font fix took CLS from 0.28 to 0.02

A font fix took CLS from 0.28 to 0.02

CLS — Cumulative Layout Shift — measures how much things jump around as a page loads. Think of it like reading a newspaper while someone keeps yanking the page sideways. Good CLS is under 0.1.

A blog scored a rough 0.28. The cause: a custom web font loaded late, so text first showed in a system font, then snapped to the new one at a different size, shoving paragraphs down.

What was done:

— Added font-display: optional so the browser keeps the fallback if the custom font is slow.
— Picked a fallback font with similar letter width to reduce the snap.

Result: CLS fell to 0.02. Readers stopped losing their place mid-sentence.

Try this: reload your article and watch the first line of text. If it visibly jumps, your font is the culprit.