Mobile optimisation is the process of ensuring a website provides a high-quality experience on smartphones and tablets. Since 2019, Google has used mobile-first indexing, meaning the mobile version of your website is the primary version used for crawling, indexing, and ranking — even for searches made on desktop computers.
For AEC firms, mobile optimisation encompasses: a responsive layout that adapts to different screen sizes, touch-friendly navigation (no hover-only menus), readable text without zooming (minimum 16px body text), fast load times on mobile networks, and a viewport meta tag in the HTML head.
Project portfolios on mobile require particular attention. Image galleries should be swipeable, project descriptions should be legible at small sizes, and contact information — phone numbers and email addresses — should be clickable tap targets that launch calls or emails directly.
A viewport meta tag (meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1") is a baseline requirement that instructs the browser to scale the page to the device width. Its absence causes pages to render at desktop width on mobile devices, making text tiny and navigation unusable.