[ad_1]
Hi,
I have been looking for opportunities since graduated last year. I sent an email to a local company to ask if they have any opportunities for web developers. Unfortunately, they are not looking for someone right now.
​
But they are relaunching their website and asking me if I am able to do it within 3 weeks using WordPress or Wix. I never used WordPress before, and the new site has about 15 pages.
​
I want to take this opportunity as a way to put on my resume and increase my credibility, but 3 am not sure if I am able to do it in 3 weeks. I read some posts here and I am not sure if I should use something like Divi/Elementor or buy a prebuilt theme on ThemeForest.
​
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
[ad_2]
The answer as usual would be… it depends.
I saw from another post on your Resume, and see that you’ve got some background in React and Bootstrap. So I’ll assume you know what/how to build a website (on the process and code side).
What I don’t really see in it is if you’ve got design skills, and that is where it might be the complexity. However, if you follow NNGroup and some UX guidelines you could do just fine.
You have a couple of “main” routes. One, use a Page builder (Divi, Elementor) which will rely more on the design side of things and not so much on the development part. Which might have some drawbacks and such, but that’s another conversation. The best part, you can use some pre-built templates to get you started and have a great flow regarding design patterns.
Another is to do it with a more “code” approach, using something like Oxygen builder, where you can have more control over CSS and how the pages/components/layouts are set. This would be a bit more on the developer side of things, but it has got a steeper learning curve, which can take time. You could even fit Bootstrap on it if you will (though I don’t think you really need to, it has got most of the components out of the box). It also has got some pre-made layouts as well.
Of course you can build your custom theme and such, but it might be too ambitious for this project.
If it’s a “normal” corporate website, I’d stay clear of ThemeForest themes, most of the time they use the same page builders you can get access to, and are bloated with a lot of stuff you won’t probably need. But it will be “easier” to make, since you’ll mostly just paste content after you find out how the theme is set and how to use the builder/pages they’ve got.
When you decide that, it will boil down to, how much information they’ve got and if it’s ready to be placed on the website. If you need to do discovery, sitemapping and such, you’ll need to spend some time there. If not, you can start with wireframes on parallel while you start toying around with a local WP install and trying things out.
With some experience (more on the process and tools than on the “design/code”) and client’s cooperation, the fastest I’ve built something “from zero to production” is 5 days. It was a small 4-5 pages business website.
​
TL;DR: It’s possible, learn how WordPress works and decide if you are going to use a page builder or not. And sort the design components early, so you don’t waste time trying to figure out how to use them within WP.