The verdict in three sentences
In Zug, where many families arrive with an international employer and compare schools from abroad, a school website redesign is as much a privacy project as a design project. On the Kolonell fixed grid, budget CHF 4,500 (Growth) to CHF 8,200 (Premium), against a 2026 ballpark of CHF 18,000 to 50,000 with a local agency, with admissions portal, SIS and integrations on quote. The main risks are a consent banner that does not match the tags actually loaded, enquiry data kept forever, and lost rankings on admissions pages.
Which signals point to a redesign in Zug?
Schools between Zug town, Baar, Cham and Hünenberg serve expatriate families of the many international companies based in the canton, alongside local families. Their websites typically run in English and German. Signals that the current site has reached its limit:
- the cookie banner shows "accept" only, or loads analytics before any choice is made;
- nobody can list which third-party tags run on the admissions pages;
- the privacy notice was written for the old site and mentions tools no longer used;
- enquiries from five years ago still sit in the CMS inbox and in a shared mailbox;
- the German version is several months behind the English one.
What budget should a Zug school plan?
2026 ballpark from typical agency quotes and public rate pages in central Switzerland and Zurich. Ranges, not fixed prices.
| Provider | Redesign budget | Privacy and consent work | Typical timeline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Freelancer | CHF 6,000 to 15,000 | Often limited to a plugin | 6 to 10 weeks |
| Local agency, mid-size | CHF 18,000 to 32,000 | Usually included at a basic level | 10 to 16 weeks |
| Local agency, enterprise-grade | CHF 32,000 to 50,000 | Tag audit and consent platform setup | 14 to 22 weeks |
| Kolonell Growth | CHF 4,500 | Consent banner configured with existing tags | 3 to 4 weeks |
| Kolonell Premium | CHF 8,200 | Same, plus the multilingual tier (languages set in the quote) | 3 to 4 weeks |
Kolonell Starter (CHF 2,700) suits a very small school with one language. Stays on quote, as separate lines: secure admissions portal, fee payment, school management system (SIS/MIS), parent app, calendar feeds. They are kept and linked, never rebuilt. The legal review of your privacy notice is done by your own counsel or data protection adviser. Details of each tier: international offer.
How do you handle cookies, privacy and enquiry data?
The revised Federal Act on Data Protection (nLPD/revFADP) has been in force since 1 September 2023, with the FDPIC as supervisory authority. If you actively target families living in the EU, the GDPR may also apply. This is not legal advice: the table below is a working method, and the final choices belong to the school and its adviser.
| Item | What to decide | Example choice (illustrative) |
|---|---|---|
| Analytics tag | Consent needed before loading? | Loaded only after consent, or a cookieless setup |
| Advertising and remarketing tags | Keep or drop on admissions pages | Dropped from enquiry pages |
| Embedded video and maps | Load before or after consent | Click-to-load placeholder |
| Enquiry form fields | Minimum about the child | Year of birth, entry year, language only |
| Retention of enquiry data | How long if no enrolment follows | School policy, e.g. 24 months, then deletion |
| Privacy notice | Parents, pupils, staff, applicants | Separate sections, plain language, EN and DE |
| Access and deletion requests | Who answers, within what time | Named contact in the admissions office |
No health, special needs, school report, passport or custody data in open forms. Documents travel through the secure admissions portal, on quote.
What can go wrong during the redesign?
- Ranking loss: inventory every URL in both languages, map each one to a 301 redirect, submit the new sitemap, and watch Search Console for 6 weeks.
- Tag drift: a developer adds a tag after launch and the banner no longer reflects reality. Fix: a written tag register, updated at each change.
- Portal and SIS links: re-linked and tested from both language versions.
- Accessibility: WCAG 2.2 AA checks on contrast, keyboard navigation, video captions and policy PDFs.
- Claims: IB or bilingual programmes, accreditations and cantonal approval appear only as the school actually holds them; safeguarding policies are published as the school's own documents.
- Timing: launch in summer or a quiet half-term, not during admissions peaks or open days.
Phasing: 1 to 2 weeks of URL and tag inventory on the school side, then 3 to 4 weeks of Kolonell design and build once content is ready, 2 to 3 days of privacy and compliance review, go-live, and 6 weeks of monitoring.
Questions to ask any provider: who maintains the tag register? Where is form data stored and for how long? Who answers a parent's deletion request? How are redirects tested?
When is a local agency the better choice?
Need a professional website?
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If the school wants a full consent management platform rolled out across several sites, an in-house data protection audit with on-site interviews, or a custom portal built with a Swiss vendor, a Zug or Zurich agency with that practice is the logical choice. For a public site with existing tools kept in place, a fixed-grid redesign is usually enough.
Mini case study
Illustrative example: Lorzenhof Bilingual School, a fictional bilingual school of about 250 pupils in Baar, teaching in English and German. Its operations manager, Anna, discovers 11 third-party tags on the admissions pages and 1,400 enquiries stored since 2019.
Plan: Premium at CHF 8,200 (the multilingual tier, languages set in the quote) + privacy notice review by the school's own lawyer, a third-party cost estimated at CHF 1,500 = CHF 9,700. Tags drop from 11 to 4 on enquiry pages. With a 24-month retention rule set by the school, and about 300 enquiries a year, the stored volume falls from 1,400 to roughly 600 records (24 months x 25 enquiries a month), a reduction of about 57%.
FAQ
Is a cookie banner enough for compliance?
No. The banner must match the tags actually loaded, and the privacy notice must describe them. Budget 2 to 3 days of review before go-live.
How long should we keep enquiry data?
That is a school policy decision, made with your adviser. Many schools pick a fixed period, for example 12 to 24 months without enrolment, then delete.
Does the redesign include our admissions portal?
No. The portal, fee payment and SIS are on quote. The new site links to them from both language versions.
Do we need two languages?
Most Zug international schools publish in English and German. Premium at CHF 8,200 is the multilingual tier, with languages set in the quote.
How long until the new site is live?
3 to 4 weeks of build once content is ready, after 1 to 2 weeks of inventory, so about 5 to 6 weeks in total.
Compare your options: request a free quote with your tag list and page count.
Let's scope your project. Share your pages, languages and current tags, and get a fixed budget from CHF 4,500 with a privacy-first launch plan. 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.
