This month, in between the random new ideas and the miscellany life throws at us, I investigated the plugins on my website. The first one I tried to tackle was All In One SEO (Search Engine Optimization). That went well, until it was time to make a free account. It wanted my phone number. I couldn’t figure out why it wanted my phone number, so I didn’t want to share it. Still, it could be worth it; I tried making the account with that required space left blank, just in case. That partially worked.

The form progressed, but now it wanted credit card information. It explained that it was to prevent spam account creation, but no. Just no. You may not have the means to charge me any time you decide I owe you, not you and not anyone.

I can still use some features of the plugin without an account. My website is small enough right now that I can do the job of their broken link checker myself, and the rest of their tools will become more useful after I have a novel and begin building a community. I can revisit the account creation then.

My site health tab showed the next order of business was MonsterInsights. That, too, will probably be of more use later. That plugin had the only two major issues left to resolve, and those are sufficiently related that I consider then a single one. One issue is that I have not set up Google Analytics; the other, that I have not connected MonsterInsights to Google Analytics.

A few other items are recommended, like uninstalling unused plugins and themes, and making sure automatic updates for various plugins are switched on. One plugin wants me to update PHP. (PHP stands for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor. Does the first ‘P’ stand for ‘PHP’ all the way down? It’s a programming language.) Checking on the PHP version says my website is already sufficiently updated; not so. Further digging shows a much higher recommended release number. So far as I can tell, I have to ask my host to update my PHP for me.

So, Google Analytics, MonsterInsights, backup, PHP request, other automatically installed plugins which will help after I begin reaching out to the masses. Maybe browse the gigantic plugin library. Keep up with creating novels so all of those become useful. Being self-employed is its own job in addition to the career you choose to employ yourself doing, isn’t it?