[wallawe]

This is sort of table stakes in the SEO world, not end all be all. First you must get these technical details ironed out, and then from there you have to focus on two things that differentiate you from competitors who also have the bases covered: 1. Backlinks - I cannot overstate how much a quality backlink can do. 2. Good content/utility

That's pretty much it but it's obviously easier said than done.

[JMTQp8lwXL]

So, instead of worrying about installing plugins, time would be better utilized getting backlinks -- which, I'm not sure exactly sure how you do. You can't force people to share your content, but you can create content that's hopefully worth linking to.

[lmkg]

They're not comparable. Plugins is basically a O(1) task: You set them up once and then they're done. If your set isn't set up for technical SEO then crawlers can't read it and you won't rank well. But once you're set up correctly and it's not really possible to put more time into managing plugins and rank better.

By comparison, building backlinks and writing content you can always sink in more time, and derive benefit from that extra time investment. So the plugin stuff is more like foundations. You need it, but it's not what your strategy is.

And "building backlinks" is a lot about outreach. You need the content worth linking to, but there's also things you can do to encourage people to link to content that they already like. Relationships with other sites, encouraging people to tweet/like/reddit/socialwhatever your content, that type of stuff.

[edmundsauto]

I've worked with good content/SEO teams. Generally, they try to make interesting content, then they hire folks offshore to promote it. It's a low hit rate, but it works over time.

Another "technique" is to crawl sites that link out to 404s, or outdated guides. Especially if it's a high value site. Then email them and suggest their users might prefer <insert better widget/site/etc that you own here>.

[brtkdotse]

No, you should install the plugin as it will bring your site up to a good base level of SEO quality - you’ll still need to fill out texts and images but the plugin will tell you where and what you need.

Generating backlinks is a skill you can aquire, but devs tend to sneer at it since a) it looks a lot like sales and b) there A LOT of shady practices