HTML

WordPress uses template file that contain a mixture of template tags, PHP code and XHTML. See Theme_Development for an overview.

I’m not creating a new theme. I uploaded one I like into WordPress. However, I want to do a few things such as adding a meta tag and I am not sure where/how to do it in wordpress.

You still need to understand how the theme template files work in order to pick the right place in the right template file to edit. Did you bother to read the page at the link above?

It looks like on the right it lists files such as footer.php, etc, so I think that points me in the right direction. Is this also where there is a file (.php) for each page I have on the website?

No – your post and page contents are stored in your database.

Okay how can I find the database?

I’d suggest contacting your hosting provider if you don’t know where your database is or how to access it. However, editing the post/page content in the database is most definitely NOT recommended.

okay got you. I thought it might be in my hosting control center. As you mentioned, I will not edit it there. So how can I add a meta tag using wordpress?

Edit your theme’s header.php if you want to add a site-wide meta header. Otherwise, have a look at something like All In one SEO.

okay I will do that. i did install the all in one seo. How do I access and use it thru wordpress?

Read the instructions for that plugin.

Where can I find the instructions. It is not on the plug-ins page.

Here is a forum dedicated to the All In One SEO plugin.
https://semperfiwebdesign.com/forum/

Once the plugin is installed, fields for all the meta information you can add you to any element you can add it to appear in your wordpress dashboard. For instance, if you go to add a new page, then at the bottom after all the standard wordpress input fields is a section titled “All in One SEO Pack” with fields for all the different types of meta info you can add to a page.

I see title, description, keywords, title attribute, menu label,disable on this page/post. So you are saying all of that is meta information?

Yes.