OK...I'll try not to bore you with all the little details of search engines.
The 1st thing you need to know about creating meta tags is that without them you may never be found on Robot Driven Searches such as AltaVista. So we are going to show you how to get the most out of your meta tags.

Meta tags are placed between the head tags on your html document. the first part is your description. This should be a short but concise paragragh desribing your website or page.
ex...<META name="description" content="Free meta tags, where to put meta tags. How search engines work and how to optimize your meta tags to place higher on search engines.">

Search Engines are constantly changing their criteria for how they place your site. The best thing you can do for your self is buy a good software program to help your rankings. Some sites will be disqualified for having too many words in the description or too many repetative keywords in the keywords tag.
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The 2nd part of your tags is the keywords.
ex...<META name="keywords" content="free meta tags, free submission, meta tags, creating meta tags, Learning meta tags, learn about meta tags, meta tag placement, placing meta tags, search engines, how search engines work, placing higher on search engines, website placement, website positioning">
Notice that we try to use every combination of descriptive words. Try to think of what people will type in that search box when looking for you. You must also keep in mind that search engines will check to see if you are utilizing these keywords in the body of your page as well. Make sure that you try and use the keywords or frases atleast 3 times in the body of your document, and put them at or near the top of your pages.

Also, you need to have a good descriptive title(Free Meta tags: All you need to know about meta tags. What are metatags, and what do they do). Notice that you should use phrases in plural most people will look for things not a thing.
(Different search engines place websites differently. Some search engines are robot driven and some actually have humans that go to your site and review it for placement. With that in mind all these properties must be working for you.

You must make sure first and foremost that you have good content in your website or the search engines that are people driven (ex...Yahoo) will place you low.

Now last but not least, you need to submit your page to these search engines. This can be a long and tedious project, but absolutely necessary. You must submit your page on a regular basis so that you don't get out dated.