Understanding the basics of a ground plane and vias to it on a 2 layer PCB

Question

I'm trying to learn the process of PDB design. I believe I've succeeded at placing my components and drawing tracks to their pads, but am having trouble adding the ground plane and connections to it.

Is the procedure below the correct procedure for grounding components on a PCB? I'm using a simple 2 layer PCB for a simple circuit via EasyEDA. Before I ask questions about things that are going wrong, I want to confirm that my understanding of the procedure is correct?

1. Pour copper over the bottom layer, making sure to avoid any areas with through hole or plugin components.
2. On the top layer, add vias near any component that needs to be grounded. These vias will touch the bottom layer's ground pour and thus be grounded.
3. Draw tracks from each such component's pad (that needs grounding) to the nearest via.

Answer 1

Just fill the entire back side. The design software will pull back the fill from anything that should not be connected, and it will remove unconnected islands.

Otherwise exactly what you've written.

The ground plane below a trace is the return path for the current on a trace. The current will take a slight detour if needed, but that is an impedance change and will change the shape of the signals, so if you use the ground plane to cross two signals, make the trace that goes on the bottom as short as possible.