If you want to build a broad audience by educating and informing them about your business offerings, blogging still holds the key. Organic reach continues to be a dominant source of traffic, and companies that blog frequently are likely to receive 97% more links to their websites. So, if you have made up your mind to start blogging, there are so many options to choose from – WordPress, Ghost, Joomla, etc. But how do you know which one would work the best for you? Nowadays, Ghost is gaining rapid momentum to emerge as one of the best WordPress alternatives. It offers content publishing in an uncluttered atmosphere where you don’t get distracted due to loads of features that you may not require. If you want to avoid messing with plugins needed to support SEO, social sharing, forms, etc., try Ghost.
What is Ghost?
Don’t get scared! Ghost is an open-source blogging platform. It focuses primarily on managing behind-the-scenes activities and supervises other content and posts. It enhances the overall blogging experience, from writing and editing to publishing. The platform uses the Node.js runtime environment to yield a blazing-fast performance than WordPress utilizing clumsy PHP codes. It saves you from the distractions of extra features cluttering the workspace so you can completely concentrate on writing to embark on your creativity. Let’s quickly explore some of the features.
Built-in SEO and social sharing
Creating content and publishing it is not sufficient, given the huge competition around. Content distribution is crucial, so it reaches a wide arena of the audience to drive profits from it. Enhance the visibility of your blogs using the in-built SEO that Ghost offers. Unlike WordPress, you do not need any SEO plugins. In addition, it offers social sharing features so you can distribute your content on popular platforms like Twitter, Facebook, etc. Ghost also provides in-built Google AMP pages, XML sitemaps, canonical tags, micro-formats, optimized URLs, tags for Facebook Open Graph, Twitter cards support, and semantic markup.
Faster performance
Node.js is a modern and fast technology stack that powers Ghost. As a result, it offers 19-times faster performance than WordPress. It implies that for each response of WordPress, Ghost can respond to 19 requests. Hence, it enhances SEO and promotes smartphone user engagement.
Unified integration
Want to integrate your blogs with other workflows and tools? The ghost has got you covered! You can integrate it with tools like Google AMP, Google Analytics, Slack, YouTube, etc. Its offerings are beyond just blogging because it is a REST JSON API having a flexible and robust architecture. Hence, you can extend, customize, and modify it based on your needs.
Is it a Headless CMS?
Ghost utilizes a headless CMS architecture where the focus is entirely on facilitating content workflows and administrative interfaces dedicated to content creators. It contradicts the traditional CMS emphasizing presentation layers, site structure, design, templates, and so on. The adoption of headless CMS is increasing at a staggering rate and is projected to double by 2021, while 63% of its users already love it, as per Contentstack. Hence, its inclusion in Ghost makes it stand out from the rest and signifies the next CMS evolution. It allows you to choose design technology that you may need, a site generator, or other frameworks to shape the Ghost blog’s presentation layer. You can seamlessly develop your website in a programming language such as Python, Javascript, Swift, etc., capable of performing API requests for retrieving data.
Difference between Ghost and WordPress
Although both Ghost and WordPress are open-source CMS, the former has the edge over the latter when it comes to blogging. While WordPress helps site owners to design and address the needs of their entire website, Ghost solely provides professional blogging tools to ride smoothly on the waves of managing your content. If you want a platform to manage your website needs and publishing is just another requirement for you, WordPress might suffice. But if you are a sincere publisher wanting to cut through the noise and looking for a secure and high-performing solution for all your publishing needs, Ghost is the way! The ghost is free to download and use. You can get the cloud VM of your choice and set it up yourself. However, it requires server administration skills and continuous maintenance. Another option is to hire a freelancer to set up for you. But, If you don’t want to waste time managing the Ghost platform yourself, then you can go for a managed hosting platform. Let’s explore them.
Ghost
Did you know Ghost offer a hosting solution too? That’s right. You can use their hosting platform to run your Ghost blog and site. Endowed with advanced publishing technologies, Ghost is a powerful platform to help you launch a lucrative business. From blogs and newsletters to payments and membership, the open-source publication solution got you covered! It offers modern tools and features designed to suit future demands. Its rich editor with a familiar environment provides unparalleled writing experience. You can seamlessly include dynamic blocks in your content, such as images, videos, embeds, and Markdown. With a robust tagging feature, you can categorize your content and dynamic routing to structure the way you like. Schedule your content using its editorial calendar to set a publishing date and time. Leverage in-built SEO, automatic metadata, canonical tags, and XML sitemaps along with an accelerated page loading. Distribute the content on Facebook, Twitter, etc., to gain more visibility and integrate the site with your favorite tools. Ghost offers industry-level security with SSL certification, isolated applications, spam protection, and firewalls to prevent a possible security breach.
FastComet
Fuel your business with FastComet to share your creative writing with the world. Be it performance or features, the platform never ceases to amaze! It also offers domain transfer for free, and the overall process is easy and quick. FastComet is an SSD hosting provider that lets you access your database and files 300% faster than non-SSD hosting platforms. It also provides free migrations included to move all your emails and other data. Widen your reach to your targeted audience by distributing high-quality content with Cloudflare CDN for free. The powerful hosting controller cPanel powers FastCloud for easy and quick point-and-click hosting account management. Additionally, keep your data safe with free backups provided by them on a daily or weekly basis. If you get stuck in the middle, don’t panic! Reach out to them with their 24/7 free technical support. FastCloud offers FastGuard security that protects your site from malicious activities and informs you in advance. Its security layer includes account isolation, brute force protection, SSL encryption, malware scan, DDoS detection, etc.
A2 Hosting
Enjoy the power-packed performance and reliability of A2 Hosting to publish your content, distribute it, and manage it the way you want. It hosts your Ghost website on its efficient platform, SwiftServer, and boosts your page loading speed 20 times faster. Even a second delay in page loading could impact your SEO rankings, bounce rate, or conversion. But with A2 Hosting, you can get super-fast performance along with a free SSD. A2 Hosting promises 99.9% of uptime by making sure your server operates at the full swivel and employing industry-standard practices, top-level data centers, and the latest security measures. In case you come across any difficulties, its 24/7/365 technical support team has got your back. You can choose to host your Ghost site in one of their four data centers.
Michigan, USA Arizona, USA Amsterdam Singapore
DigitalPress
DigitalPress specializes in Ghost hosting. It allows you to host your Ghost blog in just a few clicks. DigitalPress takes care of the underlying infrastructure, so you don’t have to worry about servers and just focus on writing the best content for your readers. You can get it started for FREE. Ads support a free blog. Ads can be removed by upgrading to a paid plan. Here are some of the features DigitalPress provides.
Custom domains Use your own theme Global CDN Automated backups and updates Unlimited page views per month Unlimited staff users and members
DigitalPress runs on the latest hardware in multiple data centers around the world. It uses advanced caching, and hourly backups and provides friendly 24/7 support. It is a great hosting choice for everyone who wants to start their own Ghost blog without managing servers.
DigitalOcean
Deploy Ghost on DigitalOcean with the help of a one-click app. It starts at $5/month. With this plan, you get 1 GB/1 CPU, 25 GB SSD, and 1 TB transfer. It is suitable for you to understand how Ghost works in presenting your creative writings and sharing them with the world. However, once you are familiar with it, you can choose higher plans to get the most out of it.
Google Cloud
Leverage superior performance and security by launching Ghost certified by Bitnami on Google Cloud. Bitnami certifies the authenticity and security of all the images that you can use on your website. It also ensures that the images are packaged using industry-standard practices and are up-to-date to achieve better performance. Google Cloud has global data centers that give you a choice to host your blog near to your targetted users.
Conclusion
Ghost manifests the idea of offering a seamless content management experience to benefit modern businesses. Publish high-quality content through any of the Ghost mentioned above hosting platforms and be ready to spot the positive difference in your online presence, branding, sales, and revenue.
