With a staff of just four, a451 Web Positioning LLP, based in Stirling Road, has beaten off major international competitors to win the deal with Thales, which adds almost 50 per cent to its turnover.

The company specialises in improving how prominently a client's website appears in search engines such as Google.

Managing partner David Hollands-Hurst said: 'About 100,000 visitors visited the site last month. We can see what they look at, where they're clicking. What we're finding is people are searching under products of the company, like Watchkeeper, the unmanned aircraft in Afghanistan, instead of under the word Thales.

'There was a big French firm that was bidding, but they didn't really specialise in this. Because we do specialise, at the end of the day, there was probably no contest.'

The £60,000 contract brings the eight-year-old firm's turnover annually to around £150,000, and is set to last for a year.

The firm is now recruiting up to two new staff.