I understand your question and can relate to this as well.
I usually post Movie Reviews on my personal blogs and it gets around 100 odd traffic/day for atleast 3 days.
Now, the reviews are roughly around 500+words. My blogposts are mostly not SEO optimized and even when I take the effort to do so, I just use the Yoast plugin. Now, there are tons of other websites which outrank me in SERPs based on the high Domain Authority they command, the expert reviewers who write that content and the huge follower base they command as compared to mine.
It doesn't matter whether their post is SEO-optimized or not as log as they have those three important things I highlighted.
If you can achieve a follower base and a high domain authority like the competitors, you might have a shot. You can ignore working on SEO after that.
Till then, you need to follow SEO-best practices. The Fundamental Guide To SEO In 2016
Keep in mind how SEO trends shift base every other year: 13 Interesting trends that will drive SEO in 2016
It takes an effort to optimize your post and not see results. I get that. But my friends, that's how the world is. You've got to push hard at the start and hopefully enjoy the fruits later