The survey found that 64% of official FTSE 100 web sites do not appear in the first page or top 10 results of a simple on-line search using keywords such as "travel", "insurance" or "bank".
The travel sector is the most advanced, with more travel companies achieving a high profile across the largest number of search engines than any other sector. The FTSE 100 insurance, banking and financial sectors, however, face considerable challenges in raising their search prominence.
"It's now well recognised that 90% of consumers will look no further than the first page of results from web searches," said Nick Hynes, CEO of The Search Works. "Businesses must therefore respond to the ever-increasing intelligence of the consumer who types in very specific search terms and expects to find the right product or service in just a few clicks."
Companies advertising on-line would also benefit from learning the processes, procedures and products relating to each of the search engines, so that they can understand how each engine ranks and edits the search listings they provide to consumers.
On the positive side, the research did find some improvement in companies' understanding of search engine marketing.
Similar research carried out by The Search Works in 2003 found that nearly one third of FTSE 100 company web sites did not even appear in the top 30 results when searched for by name. But in 2005, all of those currently ranked in the FTSE 100 appear in the first page of all search engine results when a name search is conducted.
"The consumer's ability to locate the products and services they want is key to successful on-line sales and those companies without comprehensive and targeted on-line search advertising campaigns fully integrated into their marketing programmes risk losing sales," said Hynes.