The key phrase we generally used to search something over internet is Keyword. Like if we want to search Seo company In india than we type in our Google search bar On the other hand Meta tags are the tags that are unknown for visitors . While Designing A site A Seo or Designer place then In Coding. Meta tags are the way to telling about Your site to search engine. You can Say its the communication b/w Website or Search Engine. Meta tags Include Title tag , Keywords , Or Description.
I agree to "jenny ty", but I want to add that meta tags are used for HTML coding and include right the same keywords in general (search queries). That's kind of a white optimization of the web site. Right now it is not so useful as it was earler because search engines, for example Google, tries to identify web site not by meta tags, but by the contents of the page.
We still talk to prospects who believe that Search Engine Optimization is a simple task of just “updating the meta keywords.†The truth is, the meta keywords tag, although still used by some search engines to help determine a site’s relevance to specific keyword terms, has not been in use by Google for quite some time. This week, Matt Cutts, a Google engineer who writes a blog about the search engines’ practices, publicly outed the meta keywords myth, saying that although other meta tags serve a purpose, the meta keyword tag has been a non-factor for quite some time.
Basically Keywords are the terms on which you want to rank your website & meta tags are the code structure where you insert keywords, description, home url etc.
Keyword Tag is No more importance in SE Ranking, Meta Description helps search engine and user to understand the page copy.
No, i.e. no longer. Search engines pat no attention to meta anymore because of a progrees in search bot development and black hat optimization.