SEO help needed

The way I understand it through the writing guidelines I've been given is that SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is all about making it easy for search engines to find your content. If you want to reach people who like cars, for example, you have to use certain words in at least 1% of your content. If your content is 500 words long you should use each keyword 5 times. The main keyword should be in the first and last sentence. Use words like car, automobile, car tires, car models, etc. Try to make the keywords make sense but also know that people who search use odd terms. They will use "repair car" instead of car repair so you have to work in "repair car" in there. One way would be to write "there are a lot of people looking to repair car at a local shop" and that does not sound very good. Rather, write "most people interested in car repair will look for a local shop." Do people still use meta tags? It's been a long time so I don't know. If you use meta tags (in the page code), pick 5-6 keywords to include. Cars, car repair, car transmission, auto repair, car deals. It's all about imagining yourself searching for your topic and figuring out the words and phrases that someone would use. Then write your content around those.