RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /index\.php\ HTTP/
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ http://www.yoursite.com/ [R=301,L]

2. use canonical tag properly, so for http://www.yoursite.com/my-list-of-products?orderby=name&orderway=desc you should have:

3. redirect non-www to www version
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^yoursite.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.yoursite.com/$1 [L,R=301]

Designed for starters, the seo information can be useful for any of us. You can read more from here:
Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide

Update: reading the google’s seo starter guide I’ve noticed a little paragraph about “Don’t forget about offline promotion”:

You could also send out
recurring newsletters to clients through the mail letting them know about new content on the
company’s website.

Isn’t this a similar thing to online spam, just it’s… offline?

Discoverability:

Crawling and Indexing:

Ranking – Relevance and importance:

Google resources for webmasters:

Other resources: