The U.S. Small Business Administration, the federal agency created to support America’s small businesses, is currently in a showdown with the U.S. Congress’ House Small Business Committee, reports Kent Hoover, the Wichita Business Journal’s Washington Correspondent.

The details: The House Committee is currently working to pass The Small Business Investment Expansion Act of 2007, legislation designed to promote investment during small businesses’ crucial early stages. The SBA is opposing the legislation on several points.

First of all, the bill in question would “expand the New Markets Venture Capital program, which targets businesses in low-income areas.” The SBA is against this expansion, on the grounds that the young program has yet to repay its loans, or even indicate that it is able to do so.

In addition, the bill would create a new SBA “angel investor” program requiring it to provide matching funds for early-stage business investments. The SBA has expressed skepticism on this point, as well, stating that money would be better spent keeping “taxes on investment profits low”. (What’s an “angel investor”? Click here to see Wikipedia’s description.)

Mr. Hoover adds:

The proposed bill also would restore the ability of small companies that have received large amounts of venture capital to qualify as small businesses for government programs. Under current SBA rules, a venture capital firm is considered the owner of a firm if it has a controlling interest in the firm. The SBA then counts all of the employees of all the companies the venture capital firm controls when determining whether the VC firm is a small business.

As a result, many small biotechnology companies — which often require a lot of VC investment — no longer qualify as small businesses. That’s not fair, said Dr. Scott Koenig, president and CEO of Rockville, Md.-based MacroGenics, because the companies themselves operate the businesses.

The question is, can these two important organizations reach a compromise to get the bill passed? And if so, would it be for the best? On the one hand, more loan money available to America’s small businesses seems like a surefire benefit; however, if the SBA is crippled as a result, then the long-term drawbacks definitely outweigh the short-term advantages. Frustratingly, whether or not that would really happen is impossible to predict.

Decide for yourself: Read the original story here or here, and let us know what you think in the comments section.

To continue yesterday’s small-business-tip theme, we’d like to call your attention to another useful source for small business info: About.com’s Ana Rincon who offers a great small business newsletter that usually has a pretty strong online focus.

From a recent edition entitled “Quick Tip: Monitor Your Search Rankings”, Ms. Rincon writes:

Make it a habit to check your search engine rankings at least weekly. This will give you a good idea of your visibility on the Web and alert you to any trends — up or down — in your rankings. You should check all of your important keywords and key phrases, and check all the search engines that matter to you, not just Google. There are programs available that will automate this task. One of the best is Web Position, but there are many other tools on the market, including free ones.

Here’s a quick run-down of some other recent (and not-so-recent) tips for small and online businesses:
Small Business Hub: “Free Advertising on Google - A How To Guide”
Associated Content: “Business Quick Tip of the Day: Developing a Pleasing Telephone Personality”
Online Business Advisor: “Think Before You Grow”
BNET: “27 Quick Tips To Top Search Engine Rankings”
Frugal Marketing: “Three Quick Tips for Writing SEO Copy”

Have any small business or online marketing tips you’d like to share with the Aplus.Net community? Post them in the comments section!

If you’ve been checking out the New York Times Small Business Section, you might have noticed their ongoing Tip of the Day feature. This is a series of articles that, somewhat unusually for the New York Times, doesn’t examine an in-depth issue or offer a multi-page profile of a proven business model or tactic, but rather, simply gives us a one- or two-paragraph business tip.

Today’s tip, “How Do I Improve My Web Site Ranking?“, tells us that “If links to your site appear on numerous other sites, Google’s spidering software recognizes this and ranks your site higher. But keep in mind that it’s not just the number of links that matter — it’s also the quality. Links from high-traffic sites are much better than links from sites with little or no traffic.”

Previous tips include “How Do I Remove E-mail Links to Reduce Spam?“, which tells us: “Spam ‘robots’ are continually scouring the Internet in search of new e-mail addresses. Removing actual links to your e-mail and replacing them with graphics that display your e-mail address on your Web site can greatly reduce the amount of spam you receive.”

What do you think? Do you find basic tips like these worthwhile, or are they too elementary to be of any use? Let us know what you think in the comments section, below.

The Aplus.Net customer newsletter for September 2007 has been released today! Check it out for the latest updates on new Aplus.Net products and services, coverage of Aplus.Net in the news, and great tips for online and small businesses.

If you’re not on our customer mailing list, you can check out the new newsletter here. And as always, be sure to let us know what you think of the customer newsletter in the comments section.

Today we’d like to share an interesting article from PC Magazine, which they picked up from tech expert Mike Elgan’s blog, The Raw Feed.

The article (entitled Is Apple the New Microsoft?) poses an interesting thesis: that Apple today is guilty of doing many of the things that Microsoft was vilified for doing in the ’90s. For example, Microsoft’s “bundling” of its Internet Explorer software is remarkably similar to the way that iPod owners are required to use iTunes, software that’s notoriously incompatible with other platforms.

Among other examples, Elgan goes on to cite the jacked up costs associated with the iPhone as more proof of Apple’s new monopoly power. In the end, however, he defends Apple, claiming that it’s “earned its growing power and influence, just like Microsoft did.”

So what do you think? Are Apple’s methods out of line, or is it the sort of thing a company needs to do to ensure success in today’s market? Sound off in the comments below and let us know what you think.