The verdict in three sentences
In Bath, the pages that bring a luxury agency its best enquiries are often not the listings but the area guides: Lansdown, the streets around the Royal Crescent, the Georgian townhouse quarters and the villages towards the Cotswolds, written years ago and still ranking. A redesign costs roughly £9,000 to £20,000 with a typical Bath or Bristol agency (2026 ballpark), against £3,900 (Growth) or £6,900 (Premium) on the Kolonell grid, with the portal or CRM feed on quote. Whatever you pay, the project succeeds or fails on the URL inventory and the 301 map: lose those area pages and the new design starts with less traffic than the old one.
Which signals say a Bath agency website is due for a redesign?
The typical triggers in a Bath sales and lettings agency are practical. The area guides still rank but look dated on mobile. The lettings section is a single page bolted onto a sales site. Sold and let properties return 404 errors. Landlords cannot find a clear page on how lettings are managed. Redress scheme and other memberships are hidden or out of date. Listing pages for listed buildings carry long, unstructured text with no clear place for material information. When three or more of these apply, the site is costing you enquiries.
How much should a Bath agency budget for the redesign?
Ranges reflect typical agency quotes and public rate pages in Bath and Bristol, as a 2026 ballpark.
| Budget line | Freelance | Bath or Bristol agency | Kolonell |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design and build | £3,000 to £7,000 | £7,000 to £15,000 | Included in Growth (£3,900) or Premium (£6,900) |
| Rewrite and migration of area guides | £500 to £1,500 | £1,000 to £3,000 | Included, native English copywriting |
| Lettings section for landlords and tenants | £500 to £1,000 | £1,000 to £2,000 | Included in the page plan |
| URL inventory and 301 map | Rarely included | Sometimes included | Included |
| Rightmove, Zoopla or property CRM feed | Varies | Often extra | On quote |
| Photography, video, floor plans | Third-party cost | Third-party cost | Third-party cost (local photographer) |
| Typical total excluding feed and photos | £4,000 to £9,500 | £9,000 to £20,000 | £3,900 or £6,900 |
Kolonell tiers include a project manager in your time zone, delivery in 3 to 4 weeks once content is ready and 3 months of support; maintenance afterwards is on quote. Premium is the multilingual tier, with languages set in the quote, for agencies with many overseas buyers. Details on the international offer page.
How do you protect area guide pages that already rank?
Start with a complete inventory: export every URL from Google Search Console (performance and indexing reports), run a crawler on the live site and add backlinked URLs. Then decide each URL deliberately.
| URL type | Example | Recommended action | Check after launch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Area guides | /areas/lansdown | Keep the slug if possible, otherwise one-to-one 301 | Clicks and position in Search Console |
| Landmark and street guides | Royal Crescent and Circus guide | Keep, refresh the text, keep the same intent | Impressions over 8 weeks |
| Sold listings | /property/sold/... | Status page or 301 to the area guide | No 404 errors in the coverage report |
| Let-agreed rentals | /lettings/... | 301 to the relevant lettings area page | Redirect chains of one hop only |
| Guides on buying listed buildings | Blog article | Keep, review for accuracy, stay general | Still indexed after 4 weeks |
| Tag and filter pages | /tag/townhouse | Retire or noindex if they bring no traffic | Removed from the sitemap |
| Old PDF brochures | /files/brochure.pdf | 301 to the matching page or retire | No broken backlinks |
Two rules prevent most losses: never change the main topic of a page that ranks, and avoid redirect chains (old URL to interim URL to new URL). Submit the new sitemap on launch day and keep the old one available for a few weeks so Google recrawls the redirects.
What timeline and risks should you plan for?
Kolonell works in 3 to 4 weeks once content is ready: week 1 audit and URL inventory, weeks 1 to 2 design, weeks 2 to 3 build and migration of guides and lettings pages, weeks 3 to 4 compliance review, redirects and launch. A local agency typically plans 10 to 14 weeks.
Beyond SEO, watch these risks:
- Material information. Consumer protection law requires listings to give buyers and tenants the information they need; listed status is one example of what may matter. Provide structured fields, and let the agency, not the web provider, decide the wording.
- Memberships. Sales agents must belong to The Property Ombudsman or the Property Redress Scheme; lettings work brings further obligations such as client money protection. Show memberships accurately and keep them current.
- Personal data. Under UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, forms collect name, contact, property reference and an optional budget range, nothing more. ID and anti-money-laundering checks are the agency's own process. Cookies and marketing emails follow PECR and ICO guidance.
- Accessibility. Target WCAG 2.2 AA in line with Equality Act 2010 expectations.
- Downtime. Staging site, DNS switch on a quiet evening, rollback plan.
This is not legal advice.
What stays on quote, and what should you ask?
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The portal or property CRM feed, a landlord portal, online valuation tools and custom applications stay on quote. Ask each provider: Will you share the URL inventory and 301 map before launch? How will you treat sold and let properties? Who rewrites the area guides, and will the topic of each page stay the same? Who owns the domain and analytics? What does support cost after the included period?
When is a local Bath agency the better choice?
A local agency makes sense if you want regular meetings in your office, a joint print and signage brief, or a lettings integration tied to an in-house system that needs on-site work. If the brief is a clean redesign that protects existing area pages, a remote studio working from a shared URL inventory can deliver the same result at a lower fixed price.
Mini case study
*Illustrative example, fictional agency.* Olivia runs Sulis Row Property, a Bath agency selling Georgian townhouses with a small lettings book. A local quote came to £13,000. She chooses Growth at £3,900 and books a local photographer for £1,400 (third-party cost): £5,300 in total, £7,700 below the local quote. The inventory counts 180 URLs: 62 area guides and articles redirected one to one, 60 sold or let listings kept as status pages, 36 older listings redirected to their area guide and 22 tag pages retired (62 + 60 + 36 + 22 = 180).
FAQ
How many URLs does a typical Bath agency site have?
Often between 100 and 400 once sold listings, guides and tag pages are counted. Every one of them needs a decision in the inventory before launch.
Can we keep our current area guide URLs?
Yes, and it is the safest option. Where the structure must change, a one-to-one 301 redirect protects the page, ideally with no more than 1 hop.
How long until rankings settle after a redesign?
Usually 4 to 8 weeks if redirects are correct. Monitor clicks and indexing in Search Console every week during that period.
Is the lettings section included in the Kolonell price?
Landlord and tenant pages are part of the page plan in Growth at £3,900 and Premium at £6,900. A landlord portal or lettings software integration is on quote.
Who pays for property photography?
It is a third-party cost, typically booked with a local photographer per property or per day. Kolonell prices cover the website, not shoots.
Let's scope your project. Send us your URL export, the areas you cover and your feed source, and we will return a fixed budget, a 301 plan and a 3 to 4 week schedule. See the international offer or request a free quote: detailed reply within 48 hours.
Mohamed Bah
Fondateur, Kolonell
Passionate about digital and entrepreneurship in Africa, Mohamed has been helping Sénégalese businesses with their digital transformation since 2020. Founder of Kolonell, he believes every SME deserves a professional and accessible online présence.
