📝 Creating a Blog with Ghost (WordPress Alternative)
How to create a blog with Ghost
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Thinking of using Ghost for blogging? The open source platform sets itself apart by prioritizing a minimalist design. Intensive tasks such as search engine optimization (SEO), social sharing, and website monetization are merely built-in features, freeing up users to focus on writing their best content.
The result is that Ghost is often described as a pure blogging software and provides a faster and cleaner user experience for users, as well as for the reading audience. It is often compared to WordPress when it comes on to blogging but the membership and monetization features offered by Ghost also makes it an alternative to Substack and Medium.
In a short time, Ghost has racked up an impressive client list, with brands such as Mozilla, Apple, and DuckDuckGo using it to power their own online publishing platforms.
But how do you create a blog using Ghost? Keep reading to find out all you need to know about setting up a blog using Ghost.
Ghost Basics
Ghost is built using Node.js
Like WordPress, you can use Ghost in one of two ways: downloading the free software and self-hosting your blog OR have your blog hosted on Ghost’s servers as a Ghost(Pro) subscriber.
Adding content to your Ghost blog is done via Markdown instead of a visual editor. This takes a bit of getting used to, but is fairly simple to grasp.
Adding images is done via drag and drop.
There is no free hosted Ghost plan, but you can try it out for 14 days.
You are allowed to customize the look and feel of your blog using themes.
Your journey to setting up a blog using Ghost depends on the route you take – hosting your blog yourself or having everything taken care of for you.
Prior to setting up your blog, you will still need to decide on: what your domain name/blog name will be, as well as a suitable topic to write about.
Self-Hosting Your Ghost Blog
In case you are wondering why anyone would want to go through the hassle of self-hosting, there are several benefits:
You can use the Ghost software for free
You have more control over how you want your blog to look (you get complete access to the underlying code, so you can modify the software with the right skills).
However, there are also disadvantages to self-hosting:
You will still need to pay for hosting and server maintenance
All future updates, including any security patches needed, will be your responsibility
Options for self-hosting are limited. Most hosting providers do not have the necessary infrastructure to host node.js applications
If you still want to go ahead with self-hosting your Ghost blog, you will need to figure out what you will be using as a hosting environment prior to installing Ghost.
There are several cloud hosting platforms you can choose. However, only a few (as of now) prioritize Ghost installation. Options such as Digital Ocean or Google Cloud Platform, for instance, make it possible for you to install Ghost and create your blog by following a few steps.
With other solutions, you will likely need to have at least minimal technical skills in order to complete the install. Luckily, there are numerous tutorials online that provide steps you can follow to configure and launch your self-hosted Ghost blog.
Ghost Hosting Your Blog
This option is the easiest for most people, as well as the quickest way to get set up and start blogging on Ghost (definitely my personal recommendation).
Here are some of the additional benefits:
All aspects of hosting, file backup, SEO, and server maintenance are taken care of by Ghost
Ghost is responsible for deploying all future updates for as long as your blog is up and running
Once set up, you only need to think about what you are going to write
Themes are available to help you customize the look of your blog
Every publishing and monetization feature (newsletters, membership, etc.) comes already built in
Disadvantages of Ghost hosting
The main drawback is that you have to pay a monthly fee for hosting. This starts from a low of $9 per month for the Starter plan and goes up to $199 monthly for the Business plan. However, since Ghost is a non-profit organization, the money you pay for hosting goes straight back into keeping the platform functioning properly.
Another drawback is that you don’t have access to the system files, so you can’t modify anything beyond what is available in settings and using custom themes.
Now that you know what is involved, it is pretty straightforward to set up your blog with Ghost hosting and begin blogging. Here are the steps:
Visit Ghost.org to start creating your account.
You will be presented with several subscription plans but you don’t need to choose one right away. Choose the “start free trial” option to test drive Ghost(Pro) for 14 days. This will give you access to all the available features so you can decide if Ghost is right for you.
Enter an email, password, and other credentials when prompted.
Click on “Continue and create my site” to complete setting up your account.
Select the option to create new publication.
Follow the on-screen steps to create your Ghost blog and set up your user account(s).
Go back to my.ghost.org to make changes to your blog URL and modify any other setting based on your personal needs.
Start writing your first blog post.
Customizing your Ghost Blog
Like WordPress, Ghost allows you to use different themes to change the look of your website. There are a growing number of providers that offer both free and paid themes you can use on your Ghost-hosted blog, but you can also look at those on the Ghost marketplace.
Using a theme is easy. Once you have found one you like, you can download it to your computer. Log into the admin area of your blog and look for “settings” then click on “general.” Scroll until you see the option to upload a theme. Navigate to the corresponding zip file and wait for it to be uploaded. Finally, click “Activate Now” to have the theme installed.
In addition to themes, you can set up your new Ghost blog to start collecting emails and/or to set up a membership subscription. Remember, these are all in-built features, so you only need to decide whether you are going to use them or not.
Conclusion
Setting up a blog using Ghost might, initially, seem to be a complex task. But as you can see, there is not much to it, especially if you go with the option to have Ghost take care of everything for you.
Until next time!
—Casey
I'm glad you wrote about this. I had tried setting up on Ghost last year and I found it SO complicated. I've been building blogs and sites on Wordpress since 2009 so getting used to a different platform was a bit confusing for me. I also didn't like that unless you're a programmer you can't change a thing about the themes they offer. I'd love to love Ghost but I guess I just didn't want to take the time to learn a whole new thing.