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Have you read the Beginner's Guide to SEO at http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo? That will give you a real good starting place.

I think you need to be clear that by Meta-tags, you're referring to meta-description (and title). I agree, getting these right can make a real difference. With a compelling title and meta-description you can get more than your fair share of traffic, even if you don't rank #1! All you need to do it get the searcher to believe that they are going to find what they're looking for! Meta-Keywords is probably best ignored. I believe there is a risk that Bing make use an over-stuffed meta-keywords tag as a negative signal.