Meta tags are short pieces of text that describe what a page is about. They are not visible on the page itself, but only in the page's code. Meta tags are important for SEO because they help search engines understand the page's content. The most important meta tags are the title tag, which shows the page's title, and the meta description, which gives a brief description of the page. Search engine results display these tags and can impact the number of people who click on the page. Other meta tags can show the page's language, content type, and more. It is crucial to use meta tags correctly for good SEO.