B2B websites generate, on average, 124 leads per month, according to Optify’s 2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report. Is your website keeping your sales team busy with new leads – or is it underperforming the competition?

Generating quality leads is a top challenge for marketers. For most businesses, paid sales lead generation offers limited success. An aggressive inbound marketing program is the most cost-effective means for generating high quality leads. However, even with a strong inbound marketing program in place, some small businesses still struggle. Below, our inbound marketing team shares four actionable tips for improving your internet marketing and inbound lead generation.

1. Know your conversion rates

Don’t wait until your miss you quarterly sales quota to think, “Uh oh, something is not working!” Keeping a close eye on your website’s conversion rates will immediately alert you to problems in your conversion funnel. Conversion rates are a key analytic for evaluating your website’s health.

It’s all too easy to see an increase in website traffic and believe this bump will also equal an increase in lead generation. While increased web traffic is nearly always a good thing, don’t be misled by a few glowing analytics; your web visitors may or may not be highly qualified prospects. Only your conversion rates can give you that information.

2. Don't try to be all things to all people

The most effective Internet marketing campaigns are those that are the most highly targeted. Carpet-bombing the Internet with a plethora of AdWords campaigns or running multiple social media accounts – but failing to truly engage with customers on any of these accounts – is ineffective and turns off highly qualified prospects.

Instead, you’ll end up with such a wide net of potential customers that your sales team will have to burn far too much time and energy following up on all of these leads – only to find out that none of the leads are truly qualified in the first place. Targeted campaigns may take more time to construct, refine and execute, but the results are worth the extra investment.

3. Get to the point the first time

Don’t crowd your landing pages with clutter. Excessive copy, multiple “join now!” and “sign up here!” buttons (not to mention that “free trial now!” button you have slapped onto the side of your page), and an explosion of graphics are overwhelming and distracting. Free your landing pages from visual and verbal clutter: keep copy to a minimum, keep headlines scannable, and end with a clear call to action.

Most importantly, be sure that the look and feel of your landing page, as well as the copy, mimics the PPC or email campaign that delivered your prospects here in the first place. Seamless marketing experiences will carry your leads through each stage of the conversion process.

4. Build your brand on social media

Don’t pay lip service to social media with a few accounts that are only sporadically updated. If your business is going to be active on a specific network, such as Twitter, take the time to do it right.

On Twitter, for example, this means not only building a following, but also following other industry leaders. Build a relationship with other businesses, industry leaders and customers by using the “@mention” tool to tag them in a relevant post. Curate knowledge for your followers by retweeting interesting and insightful tweets from other companies. Set up a Twitter chat with followers to discuss a specific topic, such as receiving feedback about a new product or offering a free “industry expertise” Q&A session.

By taking an active role on social media, you will strengthen your brand and establish your business as an industry thought leader – which is key to attracting highly qualified prospects.

Use these 4 tips to take a focused approach to impove your internet marketing. By focusing rather than broadcasting, you will start sales conversations with people and businesses that are looking to buy what you have to sell.