We're often asked this question:  What are meta tags and do I need them?

 Meta tags are HTML codes that are embeded into a web page.  These codes are not seen by the average human visitor - they exist to provide web crawlers (employed by search engines) more informaiton about the page they are looking at.  Meta tags usually contain the following:

1. Keywords - usually a comma separated list of terms and phrases that reflect what is on that page.
2. Description - a human readable sentence describing the information found on that page.

The general rule behind meta tags these days is this:  They can't hurt to have them, but nobody is all that certain how much they help.

That being said, I believe that using the same set of meta tags on every page can be a negative thing.  You're better off having different meta tags for each page.

A lot of people make the mistake of including keywords and descriptions that are general.  It's best to craft a set of meta tags that reflect the content on that page.  Each page has it's own set of meta tags.

As a priority, I'd put meta tags low on the list.  I'd first concentrate on generating good content on each page and finding before investing a boat load of time on making sure that every page and article has the worlds best meta tags.