Large companies must ensure they hire IT contractors to help them establish a strong position in search engine rankings, an expert has claimed.

Sam Tilston, marketing director of Memorybits.co.uk, has claimed that this sector is growing at a rapid pace and is ignored at a company's peril.

He explained: "You can have the best products, services and website in the world but if no-one can find your site then your site will have no impact."

IT contractors who have specialised in this area can help firms simulate key areas of relevancy - which the Google algorithm ranks websites by assessing.

Mr Tilston says that the best way of achieving this is by encouraging high-ranking websites to link to the company's pages.

The Natural Search Trends of the Fortune 500 report, compiled by Conductor, recently found that only two per cent of surveyed domains registered in the top search results, with half of these firms having no significant search engine visibility.