Wild Apricot membership website builder review – Paid SEO, Security Issues, Lack of Flexibility

Wild Apricot targets non profit organizations, clubs, and associations wanting an easy and affordable website builder they can use to organize events and register members – i.e. a membership management software / website builder.  But how affordable is the website builder?  If you opt to use the Free Plan, your website not only must display two lines of multiple advertising links to Wild Apricot and its features at the bottom of each of your webpages, but you also don’t get to use your own domain name (www.your-organization.org), and you don’t get SEO (search engine optimization).  You also don’t get many of the membership website builder features unless you pay $25/month…. want all of the features, but still restricted with size limits, you must upgrade to what’s listed as their most popular plan, the Community Subscription Plan , where you must pay double that at least $50/month… Even at the top Enterprise Level at $200/month you only get 1..6 GB overall storage disk space.  You will not find the same amount of flexibility on a hosted website builder software vs a website builder software where you can choose your own web host.  Compare Wild Apricot to Ultimate Web Builder web hosting (which you are not forced to use but can choose to use with the software) – for $20/month you get UNLIMITED storage disk space.  You also get free professional installation of any software updates, so you don’t lose on hosted website builder software services.  While on Wild Apricot you save money because there is no set up fee and you don’t have to pay for the website builder software itself, as it is a hosted website builder service, you are paying for it each month, actually costing you more, and giving you less.

Visibility is very important for any website, you want to be found.  If you can’t stay in business without customers and web surfers finding your website and knowing about you, you need to be found.  Organic search engine results (website visitors find your website by typing search keywords/phrases vs clicking on a search engine/website paid ad) are especially important for non profit organizations and small clubs and associations that don’t have a huge budget to advertise and promote their great cause and services.  Everyone wants to take advantage of the SEO (search engine optimization) to do’s – why pay ten cents or a dollar for every click to your website when you can get it for free.  Unfortunately, a huge red flag with the Wild Apricot website builder free subscription plan is SEO!!  You get no search engine optimization with the free Wild Apricot website builder plan except for the page title meta tag and the actual text content of your website.  No page keyword meta tags, no page description meta tags, and most visible to website visitors on your website: No unique domain name and no unique page urls.  Every page on your website will be: http://…/Default.aspx?pageId=[a bunch of numbers].  Who wants that?  If you check out the Wild Apricot website, you will find that Wild Apricot company doesn’t want that either!  The Wild Apricot website page URLs are unique for each page, filled with SEO keywords.  The Wild Apricot website has meta keywords and meta description too.  Is your website less important?

With Ultimate Web Builder software, you get to choose not just your page meta title, but also your page meta keywords, page meta description, AND your page URL!  One-time fee for the website builder software, and use it on any web host you choose that satisfies the server requirements.   Ultimate Web Builder software has a built-in SEO tool – the same SEO tool we use and the SAME website builder software we use on our own website and on our client websites.  Quality is Quality.  Read more on SEO: SEO Friendly URLs – Better Search Engine Ranking.

Some webpages you want to be found, some webpages, or documents, or photos you don’t want to be found, you want to keep private, or members only access…or perhaps even select members access only.  Unfortunately, while you can set webpages on your Wild Apricot website secure and private, you cannot be so sure with documents or photos you are linking to on those webpages.  In fact, if someone goes to the url for those “secure” and “private” documents and photos, and do not have the specified member access, it’s okay – they will get access.  Probably not OK for you.

What kind of security do you get with Ultimate Web Builder software?  If you want to keep your downloadable files secure, you can really keep them secure.  There is no url for website visitors to enter and be able to access your secure files – they have to have your specified member access or they will get an Access Denied message, which like the rest of your website you can customize.  How is this possible?  Ultimate Web Builder software doesn’t store your secure files in the Files Manager of the server.

Ultimate Web Builder software has been built as an all-in-one software with one price for all the features – it is not just a membership website builder software, it is also an e-commerce website builder software, a photo portfolio website builder software, and an anything you want it to be website builder software.  Ultimate Web Builder software can be used as the base and foundation of any type of website, from social networking websites to Facebook apps too.  You will save lots of time and money and enjoy QUALITY, FLEXIBLIITY, and a DYNAMIC website.

Update: check out this social network website builder comparison chart!