I think you are wrong in some ways. People never remember the site we say them, and they go search for the keywords in google and some other search engines. So SEO for a site is as important as adding content to that.
My simple algorithm for google is: If A and B are two sites, if A has a link to B, then It would be considered as a vote for the site A. So If you to other sites and link it to your site, then It would be considered as a vote for your site.