Sure, deep linking to your inner website pages is the key for high ranking beside of your own website inner linking structure
I think you also need to optimize your subpages.. And I am sure submitting your sites to directories could help your subpages.
meta description is one of the basic requirements to get backlinks so go ahead and provide all your subpages with meta tags.
Subpages also need backlinks to better rank. You should also focus on subpages to make link building process more natural. Natural linking profile will help you to get better SERP and long terms SE traffic.
yes Meta Tags / Meta Description are also very important for sub pages and back links are too, if your home page get good position in search engines its mean your home page have very good back links , but your subpages are not having good position its mean they don't have much back links for them. so its simple that you have to build back links for your subpages too, to improve them SE Ranking