Free 5 Day Website Challenge FAQ

I was in the middle of the 2018 Challenge when the 2019 one came out – do I need to start over?

No!!! The biggest difference between the 2018 and 2019 Challenges are the email service provider recommendations, a new GDPR training, a classic editor/Gutenberg editor training, a new theme and additional hosting provider to choose from. The rest of the Challenge is the same, the strategies are the same. But if you want to go through the new one and see what else you can learn, go for it!!

I already have a domain name and hosting – do I need to move to Bluehost?

No! Almost every host has WordPress available as a 1-click installation like I show in my video. If you need help getting WordPress set up on your site, contact your host. But if you are just starting and don’t have domain and hosting yet I highly recommend Bluehost.

I use MailChimp, and you're not teaching it in the Free 5 Day Website Challenge anymore. Do I need to switch to a different email service provider?

I used to recommend MailChimp because they were a great free option for entrepreneurs. MailChimp is still great, and if you have them, no need to switch, but they’ve made some changes to align their service less with entrepreneurs and more with enterprise/large businesses. Their free plan only lets you send one welcome email, and they’ve made a lot of other changes that make them less intuitive. I’m no longer going to be teaching MailChimp in the Challenge, but you can access the 2018 Challenge’s MailChimp training videos here.

Do I still need the Bloom email optin form plugin if I'm using MailerLite or ConvertKit?

You don't have to use Bloom if you're using ConvertKit or MailerLite because both of those email service providers have the slim optin form that we used Bloom to create.

However, you can totally keep all the Bloom optin forms you have and just hook them up to your new email service provider – you don't need to create all new forms.

Bloom is still an awesome option for creating pretty, eye-catching email optin forms – but you don't need it like you did with MailChimp (since MailChimp didn't have the kind of optin form we needed for our perfect homepage layout built in).

I'm getting a message that WP Retina isn't compatible with my version of PHP and the plugin is deactivated. What the heck does that mean?

PHP is the programming language that WordPress runs on, and just like anything else, it gets updates. PHP settings are accessible via your web host.

If you have Bluehost, you can log in, click on the Advanced tab, scroll down to SOFTWARE and click on MultiPHP Manager, and then select the latest version of PHP from the dropdown menu and click Save. Then you won't see that message anymore and can update any plugins.

If you are hosting with a different company and can access your CPanel, look for an option that has a square icon with the letters “php” in it and that's typically the one that will let you update your version of PHP.

Or you can contact your hosting company directly and ask them to update you to the latest version of PHP.

I got a message that a plugin I have installed has been abanoned. What do I do?

All this means is that the developer isn't updating the plugin anymore. If you're using the plugin, you can continue using it, but it's possible it could become insecure or incompatible with WordPress updates over time, so you might want to find an alternative.

If you are getting this message with the One Click Child Theme plugin from the 2017 5 Day Website Challenge, you can go ahead and deactivate and delete it. You don't need it anymore.

WordFence keeps locking me out! Help!!!

First, on the lockout page, there’s a place for you to enter your email address to be sent an unlock email. Follow the steps in that email to get unlocked. If you don’t get that email in 5-10 minutes, check your junk mail. If you never get that email, we’ll go into Bluehost and disable WordFence – watch this video to see how https://www.screenmailer.com/v/FO6Y… (at the end, don’t click Cancel like I did).

Then you can log back into, click on Plugins and reactivate WordFence. Finally to keep yourself from getting locked out again, we’ll whitelist your IP address. To do that, go to whatismyip.com and get your IP address. Then, log into your website, go to WordFence > Options > Other Options and find the Whitelist IPs section and paste yours in there and save it. WordFence will stop blocking you.

I can’t get logged in to my courses, I’m stuck in a loop!

First step to troubleshooting this one is to clear your browser cache, we start there and if it doesn't fix it, we move on to the next steps.

Here's how to do it in Chrome without losing all of your saved passwords:

Press Control + Shift + R on your keyboard (Command + Shift + R on a Mac) OR:

Open Chrome. On your browser toolbar, click the three stacked dots on the right side . Click History, and then Clear browsing data. Under “Clear browsing data,” select only the checkbox for Cached images and files.

Instructions for clearing the cache in other web browsers can be found here.

I don’t see the plugins menu that you show in your video – help!

You likely have a WordPress.com site – there’s a difference between that and the self-hosted WordPress that I teach in the Challenge. You can’t follow the Challenge with a WordPress.com site and I encourage you to set up a self-hosted site like I show in the Challenge. You can learn more about the difference here.

I'm using MailChimp, and I don’t want to buy Bloom. Is there another plugin I can use?

There are lots of email optin plugins, but Bloom is the only one that I have found that integrates with MailChimp and that gives you the inline optin and design options needed to create an effective homepage optin. If you're gonna use MailChimp. I highly recommend making the investment in Bloom.

If budget is a concern, user MailerLite for your email service provider and use their built-in optin form.

The word Home >> and the names of my pages are appearing at the tops of all of my pages beneath my banner. How do I get rid of this?

These are called Breadcrumbs, and to remove them go to Appearance > Customize > Layout > Pages, scroll all the way to the bottom of the options and uncheck the box to show breadcrumbs. Do the same thing in Appearance > Customize > Layout > Posts.

The titles of all of my pages are showing on each page. How do I get rid of this?

Go to Appearance > Customize > Layout > Pages, scroll all the way to the bottom of the options and check the box to hide page titles.

I can’t get my Google Analytics/Search Console account to authorize.

Try the HTML file upload method. You’ll log into your hosting account, find your File Manager and upload the verification file to your public_html folder – just like adding a document to a folder on your computer. Then try again – that method usually is the most foolproof. If that fails, just skip it and come back to it at the end, sometimes it's finicky and it just takes time.

I’ve followed all the steps to set up MailChimp and I tested it with my email address, but I never got an email. Help!

1) Check to make sure that the email addresses you are using to test are on the mailing list. If they are NOT, you don't have Bloom connected so go back and check those settings.

If they ARE:

2) In Bloom, see if disable Double Optin is toggled ON. If so, then your subscribers WILL NOT receive the optin confirmation email – and that’s okay as long as you’re using Automation, which is a paid feature of MailChimp. Then:

3) In MailChimp, click on Automation and open up your workflow. First, check to see if the workflow is active (green envelope) or paused (pink pause button).

Then check to see what the Trigger is – make sure its set to Immediately (the default is 1 Day).

Then check to see that all of your individual emails are active and not paused.

If none of that works, ask in the group!

I want to use Divi (or insert any other theme name here) for my theme. Can I still take the 5 Day Website Challenge?

Yes! I recommend Make by Theme Foundry* and Divi* – and I'll teach you both in the Challenge!!

If you want to use another theme, make sure they have excellent documentation and support because when you install it, it will look nothing like the theme demo you fell in love with and every theme is different as far as what it takes to customize it.

FAQ