Manual soldering issues and advices
With lead free solder it is more common than not that you will need to add additional flux.  That's especially true for a board or components that have the surface tarnished at all.

Solder only touching the component made more sense in the era of through hole parts and leaded components - in many other situations today such as fine pitch surface mount it does not apply as strictly, or perhaps at all. You may also find that even in the through hole situation, solder on the iron can increase the heat transfer by filling the space between the iron tip shape and the lead / board.