Isn't it just the nature of competition? I've got a wordpress website where I don't really do any SEO, but it is of much better quality (IMHO) than my competitors who are not great with tech, and I am getting a lot of top ranked google/google images results.
that's the beauty of it. You can get massive traffic nowadays without building backlinks like back in the day. by making "better" content. Google really pays attention to user-signals like CTR and bounce rate. Source: I've tested and gamed it a lot.
how can I just write something relevant and not do all the “tricks” and still reach to audience