• Never post your email address in plain text, such as on your website.  (This applies only to online where email addresses can easily be harvested by bots…it’s ok to have it on your business cards)
• Converting your email address to an image for website use is better, but there are tools that can ‘read’ images, so it still isn’t a perfect fix.
• Contact forms are usually the best answer for a website.  Make them quick and easy to use, and install a captcha method to prevent abuse.
• When signing up for services, online forums, online purchases, etc…use an email address specifically for this so that your ‘good’ address doesn’t receive all the junk.
• using domain based email services such as Google Apps is another great way to avoid spammers; they target gmail/yahoo/hotmail/etc accounts far more often than a unique domain.
• Never reply to spam messages, for obvious reasons.  Legitimate marketing emails must have an ‘unsubscribe’ link on the email; these will often remove you from one list and add you to another, so that can be a no-win.

Don’t forget to check your spam folder on occasion to make sure no ‘good’ emails are being sent there.  If you find one, make sure to mark it as ‘not spam’ so that your filter will learn it’s mistakes.

I wrote a short ebook for folks who are interested in setting up their own website; you can find it here.  It explains the big picture of what you need to do, and what your expenses will be during the process.

Even if you already have a site or are having one professionally built, the ebook is still a good read and will help you understand the geeky terminology, and the design process itself.