So I am reading that there are plug ins for blogs. I am curious if a plug in is needed? Can I just build a blog page and it meets the need SEO for google to scrape it?
No, a plugin is not needed. I’ve built plenty of blogs that are integrated the same way as all of my other pages. That’s how I would do it, while implementing as many of these tips as you can:
Edit: The point about keeping it on your root domain is important. And what I ended up doing was setting up a new data type called “blog-post” with all of the content, and then set up a dynamic page with that type so that the url for my article is: www.domain.xyz/blog/article-slug.
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+1 to what @deliriousmiles said - a page of type “post” does the trick, and it will display all the posts you have in your database. Combine that with the Rich Text Editor to enter the data, and you’ve got a pretty good starting point for blog content.
The problem I kept running into is wanting a nice interface to write in, and being able to do things like schedule posts, add tags, and edit things like metadata on the fly - all this without having to create a blog editor from scratch.
Can’t speak for other tools, but that’s why I created BlogPronto 
No, there’s no need for plugins. But you should promote it, though. Like using social media, collaborating with other bloggers, and posting regularly. It’s all covered here. It also mentions how to optimize it for SEO.