I NEVER META TAG I UNDERSTOOD

I knew it would come to this; I guess it was inevitable.  I was hoping to dodge the bullet, but I came face to face with it yesterday--the mystifying and mysterious meta tag.  I've met it, and I can tell you I don't like it much so far.

Yesterday I was doing some research on search engine optimization (SEO), strategies for making sure that your website appears in the first few results when someone searches for websites in your category. It turns out that meta tags are key to this process.

Here's what I learned (I think).  A meta tag is a special invisible HTML code that you add to your website so that search engines can find it.  I always thought that search engines looked for keywords in the text of your website, but that's not true.  Although, as I understand it, some search engines pick up a few words of visible text, most of them look for these hidden descriptions and keywords to recognize your site as relevant to the searcher's quest.  

First, I must say that the whole meta tag thing seems ridiculously and unnecessarily complicated.  If the visible text of your website doesn't explain who you are and what you do, it's a lousy website and probably doesn't deserve to be seen.  So why do you need to insert invisible code describing what you do so that it can be recognized by search engines?  

Clearly, the meta tag is an insidious tool in the on-going war against the technologically impaired.  I resent the hell out of it, but I can't change it, so let's move on.

I found a couple of on-line guides that described the process of inserting meta tags, and followed the instructions.  I took me more than an hour, and when I was done, I had no idea whether I got it right.  I still don't know for sure.  BECAUSE THE DAMN THINGS ARE INVISIBLE!!

So my question is, if you meta tag on your website but you couldn't see it, would it really be there?

I guess that's next week's challenge.  Ugh.