Reading the OP was all well and good but saying things like "learn your character" and "watch pro players to learn their strategies" doesnt work unless you know what you are looking for. Which I dont.
LEARNING YOUR CHARACTER
Learn your buttons. How fast they come out, how fast they recover, what's their range and how long they are active. You don't need to read frame data for this, just push your buttons in front of the dummy and see what happens. You also need to learn what buttons can be cancelled into Specials, what buttons are natural anti-airs and situational anti-airs.
Once you know what your buttons do, you need to decide what buttons are best in each situation and what purpose they may serve to your game plan. For istance, cr. MK is a very good Ryu button: it's fast, has good recovery, has good range and is cancellable into specials. But you don't want to just use this button, as good as it is. You need to learn other buttons so your gameplan doesn't revolve around just one button. What will your rival do to fight your cr. MK? Depends on the character you fight, of course, but you need to find tools to counter whatever they do. Imagine you're fighting Ryu, he will want to use his cr. MK. What are your options? You can fireball him before he comes in range, you can focus, you can lk or cr. lk in anticipation, so you kick him before his hit is active, you can move slightly back and cr. MK to punish his whiffed cr. MK... there are a lot of options.
Learn your specials: You need to know what your specials do. How fast they come out, range, etc.. That for every button and ex variant. Some variants are more safe and some do more damage. Want to punish? Go with the highest damage, want to test grounds? go with the safest. Some Specials are totally safe, depends on the character. You can abuse these for chip damage. But keep in mind that abusing anything in fighting games leads to your rival getting huge chunks of good info. You need to learn the properties of your specials and how they interact with your rival to make the best use of them. But keep in mind that learning the specials is just as important as learning your buttons. Knowing how to do your specials doesn't mean you know your character. Not at all.
Learn your player's movement: You need to know how fast the speed of your character is, how fast or floaty his jump is, how good his dash is. This is important because the movement of your character is very important to determine your game plan. Can you walk in and grab your oponent? can you dash in and grab him? can you use your dash to go under the oponent? Can you dash out and still be in range to fight? Can you use your jump or you better use it seldomly? Movement is very important. as it determines how your footsies are to be played.
Learn your BnB: BnB is your basic combos. Above everything, you need to learn how to punish properly and how to confirm and blockstring. Punishers can be as complex as you may do them, but you need to be realistic. 100% punishments with just sweeps or grabs is so much better than 50% punishments with higher damage combos.
Find a general gameplan: When you start playing, you either do random stuff or play reactively. You need to have a very basic gameplan. For Ryu your basic gameplan could be keeping your rival at a distance with fireballs and when they get to mid distance, fish for their jump and punish with a SRK. If they come near, then use cr. MK+fireball to get them back. Your gameplan is usually built around what you learned and your natural tendencies. You want to make use of your best buttons and specials and make great use of your player's mobility (or hide how bad it is!).
Learn the matchups: You need to know your rival. You can't play Gief like he's Poison. Some buttons you never use, some tactics you never use, can come handy when facing these rivals. Some characters need to totally scrap your general gameplan and go for a totally new thing because it will be useless against these characters (like you will have a hard time beating Posion in the fireball game and Gief can ex green hand you at mid range if you go crazy with fireballs).
I think I covered the basics here. Above anything else, you need to play and play and play and, if possible, have as much fun as you can. One final advice: Sometimes you need to take steps back to make a jump forward.
As for PROs, watching them is good to come out with general ideas, with some responses to situations you've faced and are struggling with and with adapting your gameplan to what you've seen to make it more efficient. But I wouldn't worry too much about studying the PROs if you're starting now.
Your fastest moves, your anti-air, moves that keep enemies at bay and out of your space, and watch someone play your character for their game plans. 
