Great video, I feel exactly the same about Wordpress, it's so saturated and overwhelming with all those plugins and complex architecture. Ghost is exactly what I'm looking for!
This was really useful Dave, thanks! I'm finishing up my new ghost site but I'm a bit confused about the newsletter options. I have multiple newsletters but can't seem to find a way to display each newsletter on one page. I know folks can see the newsletter subscription options when they first subscribe, or through their subscription settings for existing subscribers, but is there a way for me to feature all four of my newsletters on one page? If not, do you recommend opting existing users into all of the new newsletters and then making sure they know how to unsub to the ones they don't want?
Regardless of which theme I choose it does not provide an option to toggle off images for posts. Mine's appearing different from yours not sure why. So sick of seeing this "hello" image lol.
Hey Occult -- Good question. With Ghost, you can get by with very minimal server specs. Especially when you use a CDN like Cloudflare. Because of the UX, I wouldn't recommend AWS to people unless they're already AWS fluent. In which case, they don't need me. I have a video here on setting up on DO: th-cam.com/video/hAExY4tOAwA/w-d-xo.html In my Self Host Ghost course, I run the site on Vultr. Even a $6/mo Vultr box can handle multiple Ghost sites. Here is that course: profitabletools.com/product/self-host-ghost/ And the demo site that is running on Vultr: nimblesound.com I'm also running this site on that same server, using an Cloudflare Reverse Proxy to install Ghost into a Subfolder (covered in course) brainrevenue.com/blog/
Also, how robust are analytics? Substack doesn't allow you to toggle posts by highest viewed or allow you to see aggregated stats by month and I would really love those two things.
The analytics are very helpful, I'm not sure if they're exactly what you're looking for but I think they're quite good for native analytics. Of course you can always use third party analytics like GA4, Fathom, etc. Helpful links: ghost.org/help/website-analytics/ ghost.org/help/post-analytics/ I cover this in depth in my premium Ghost course: clientamp.com/details/ghost-mastery/
You can add items to your menu from Settings > Navigation. Sub menus aren't support but you can add them by modifying your theme. Exactly how to do that will depend on the theme you're using. It might be easiest to look for a theme that has this feature if you don't want to write the code yourself.
Hi Joshua, You can create a sales page in Ghost (I cover this in my course: profitabletools.com/ghost-5-mastery/) so I'm not sure why you'd need to sell outside of Ghost... it just adds complexity. One situation I could see is wanting to sell lifetime access to your newsletter -- for this you'd use a Stripe payment link, then have a webhook trigger (somewhere - could be Zapier/netlify/etc) that responds to the stripe payment by creating the Ghost user with a forever complimentary account. Theoretically you could probably take a similar approach for removing accesss, so if you really didn't want to use Stripe you could create another webhook to remove complimentary access.
Hi Dave! Thank you for sharing this valuable content with us. I'm looking at the three courses you offer. What is the difference between the Ghost Mastery course and the Self Host course?
Thanks for asking @terrylina.8366 Ghost Mastery is focused on using Ghost and building out a site with the front-end features. Self Host Ghost is about how maintain a server running Ghost if you choose to not use Ghost Pro, and instead install Ghost on a server from some place like Vultr or Digital Ocean. This is a more technical course for people learning about server administration. I hope that helps, let me know if you have other questions.
I want to do a photoblog of our travels for friends to follow. I want to post photos in a continuous scroll with captions or longer paragraphs for each. Mostly for mobile use. I want to place them chronologically with the ability to insert posts made later into the order by their date. Also the ability to send subscribers a notice that there are new posts to see. Then possibly tag posts like "Arizona", "Grand Canyon", "mountain" etc. Can you tell me where to learn this?
Hey @redsondancer, I cover adding posts with photos, adding captions, changing their post dates, tagging, email newsletters, and much more in my course Ghost Mastery: clientamp.com/details/ghost-mastery/
Hi @LiLaLizzy8, yes the course is still there but we have shuffled things around. There should have been a redirect, sorry about that! courses.clientamp.com
I may have just missed this, but I am wondering if email subscribers can be added manually by me? Do those email addresses require double opt in? I'll get to that eventually as I have your courses, but I thought I'd ask here as well. Apologies if you covered that in the video. The purpose would be to move a list from elsewhere or to add people that tell me on the phone or in person or other person that they want to subscribe (yes, in my use cases that is likely to happen). 😁
Yes, I have a video on how to install it here: th-cam.com/video/hAExY4tOAwA/w-d-xo.html I also have a full course (paid) on managing self-hosted Ghost websites: clientamp.com/product/self-host-ghost/
Great video! What would you recommend is the best way to optimize the SEO for the site? I want to add more structured data and the current Ghost offerings are very limited.
Thanks! You'd need to use the code injection feature. You could write a schema template and then paste it into each posts code injection and update the contents for the relevant post. WordPress definitely wins for structured data! Maybe Ghost will catch up with version 6? 🤞
www.google.com/webmasters/markup-helper/u/0/ Test with: validator.schema.org Check my SkillJet course on Schema: skilljet.io/courses/schema-markup-guide/
Dave. how do you back up your ghost website? In WordPress, there are solutions like Updraft Plus, All in One WP Migration, etc. to backup complete website. I couldn't find a similar solution in Ghost.
Hey Sachinkhyalia, there is a script on Github called Wraith. It automates the backup process to nearly any cloud provider. I go through the setup and automate cloud backups to Google Drive in my course. You can find it here: profitabletools.com/product/self-host-ghost/
Hi, can you explain how to connect a domain to ghost. I need real basic steps because I'm not really tech savvy I just signed up for ghost trial but want to connect a domain later on. I dont know all the technology terms, so help on this matter would be great appreciated. I enjoyed your video on how to get started in ghost. I thought I'd mention I do have a domain already bought on namesilo, but not sure how to connect to ghost with all the codes and however this works is beyond me. Please explain how to connect a domain to ghost and if anything else I have to do in my domain provider to get it connected. Thank you, SM
Hi Sally -- thanks for watching and commenting. Go to Ghost(Pro) > Domain to connect your domain. You'll need to create some DNS records on Namesilo Here are the details from Ghost: ghost.org/help/using-custom-domains/ Here is how to create DNS records with Namesilo: www.namesilo.com/support/v2/articles/domain-manager/dns-manager If you have trouble, I recommend connecting with Namesilo support as they will have access to your account and can probably set these up for you.
Hi Dave I've migrated a bunch of articles from WP to ghost, but none of them are connected to main page by tags or any other meta data. So nobody can explain how to connect them to the homepage. Do I have to make tag pages? Do they automatically populate after that?
Hey Jon, I'm not sure I totally follow. You imported some posts and you want the to show up on your Latest Posts in your home page but they don't? Covering the basics here, but did you make sure they didn't import as unpublished? Also, you mention tags. When you import the articles form WP to Ghost, you can import the existing categories & tags. Did you import any of that data? Tag pages are created automatically. It's not something you should have to do manually.
I just had the same problem when trying to watch this video on the big screen TV. It seems to be fine now that I'm on my iMac. Something to look into though.
Great video. One question that I can't seem to find an answer to - is there an affiliate program built in? Not for me to promote Ghost, I see that. But a way for me to have affiliates promote my Paid content...
I looked for a free alternative to this commercial software. Anyways, for this tutorial we'll be using this paid way of running said software instead of teaching you how to do this for free
This was a well constructed video and great visuals man. Good job on the reoccurring revenue too!
Thanks!
Really helpful video. Clear, calm and concise. Good work Dave
Great video, I feel exactly the same about Wordpress, it's so saturated and overwhelming with all those plugins and complex architecture. Ghost is exactly what I'm looking for!
Ghost is amazing for publishers, membership sites, and bloggers! You're going to love it for publishing content.
@@dave-swift I just installed the self-hosted version for my site, so far so good. Thank you again.
This was really useful Dave, thanks! I'm finishing up my new ghost site but I'm a bit confused about the newsletter options. I have multiple newsletters but can't seem to find a way to display each newsletter on one page. I know folks can see the newsletter subscription options when they first subscribe, or through their subscription settings for existing subscribers, but is there a way for me to feature all four of my newsletters on one page? If not, do you recommend opting existing users into all of the new newsletters and then making sure they know how to unsub to the ones they don't want?
Regardless of which theme I choose it does not provide an option to toggle off images for posts. Mine's appearing different from yours not sure why. So sick of seeing this "hello" image lol.
Any plans for comparing using AWS vs digital ocean to see if there is a large price difference?
Hey Occult -- Good question.
With Ghost, you can get by with very minimal server specs. Especially when you use a CDN like Cloudflare.
Because of the UX, I wouldn't recommend AWS to people unless they're already AWS fluent. In which case, they don't need me.
I have a video here on setting up on DO: th-cam.com/video/hAExY4tOAwA/w-d-xo.html
In my Self Host Ghost course, I run the site on Vultr. Even a $6/mo Vultr box can handle multiple Ghost sites.
Here is that course: profitabletools.com/product/self-host-ghost/
And the demo site that is running on Vultr: nimblesound.com
I'm also running this site on that same server, using an Cloudflare Reverse Proxy to install Ghost into a Subfolder (covered in course)
brainrevenue.com/blog/
Also, how robust are analytics? Substack doesn't allow you to toggle posts by highest viewed or allow you to see aggregated stats by month and I would really love those two things.
The analytics are very helpful, I'm not sure if they're exactly what you're looking for but I think they're quite good for native analytics. Of course you can always use third party analytics like GA4, Fathom, etc.
Helpful links:
ghost.org/help/website-analytics/
ghost.org/help/post-analytics/
I cover this in depth in my premium Ghost course: clientamp.com/details/ghost-mastery/
Outstanding video, thank you.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Thanks! I needed this.
Glad I could help!
How to create a top menu option that says "Articles", and once clicked it reveals a few options in the drop down menu?
You can add items to your menu from Settings > Navigation. Sub menus aren't support but you can add them by modifying your theme. Exactly how to do that will depend on the theme you're using. It might be easiest to look for a theme that has this feature if you don't want to write the code yourself.
How do you make it so if someone buys my newsletter outside of ghost to zap them in that? I dont see that in zapier.
Hi Joshua,
You can create a sales page in Ghost (I cover this in my course: profitabletools.com/ghost-5-mastery/) so I'm not sure why you'd need to sell outside of Ghost... it just adds complexity.
One situation I could see is wanting to sell lifetime access to your newsletter -- for this you'd use a Stripe payment link, then have a webhook trigger (somewhere - could be Zapier/netlify/etc) that responds to the stripe payment by creating the Ghost user with a forever complimentary account.
Theoretically you could probably take a similar approach for removing accesss, so if you really didn't want to use Stripe you could create another webhook to remove complimentary access.
So I can use something other than stripe to collect?
You'd have to built something with Zapier or a custom integration with the Ghost API, but there is no reason you couldn't.
Hi Dave! Thank you for sharing this valuable content with us. I'm looking at the three courses you offer. What is the difference between the Ghost Mastery course and the Self Host course?
Thanks for asking @terrylina.8366
Ghost Mastery is focused on using Ghost and building out a site with the front-end features.
Self Host Ghost is about how maintain a server running Ghost if you choose to not use Ghost Pro, and instead install Ghost on a server from some place like Vultr or Digital Ocean. This is a more technical course for people learning about server administration.
I hope that helps, let me know if you have other questions.
@@dave-swift thank you for your response, David! That makes sense
I want to do a photoblog of our travels for friends to follow. I want to post photos in a continuous scroll with captions or longer paragraphs for each. Mostly for mobile use. I want to place them chronologically with the ability to insert posts made later into the order by their date. Also the ability to send subscribers a notice that there are new posts to see. Then possibly tag posts like "Arizona", "Grand Canyon", "mountain" etc. Can you tell me where to learn this?
Hey @redsondancer, I cover adding posts with photos, adding captions, changing their post dates, tagging, email newsletters, and much more in my course Ghost Mastery: clientamp.com/details/ghost-mastery/
@@dave-swift Hi Dave, the link is not working. Does the course still exist? Thank you very much.
Hi @LiLaLizzy8, yes the course is still there but we have shuffled things around. There should have been a redirect, sorry about that!
courses.clientamp.com
I may have just missed this, but I am wondering if email subscribers can be added manually by me? Do those email addresses require double opt in?
I'll get to that eventually as I have your courses, but I thought I'd ask here as well.
Apologies if you covered that in the video.
The purpose would be to move a list from elsewhere or to add people that tell me on the phone or in person or other person that they want to subscribe (yes, in my use cases that is likely to happen). 😁
Hey Jon, Yes, they can be added manually by you... either one at a time or via csv upload.
No double opt-in required.
Here is how: share.clientamp.com/jk0T98bX
it's free to download and install onto my own server right?
Yes, I have a video on how to install it here: th-cam.com/video/hAExY4tOAwA/w-d-xo.html
I also have a full course (paid) on managing self-hosted Ghost websites:
clientamp.com/product/self-host-ghost/
Great video! What would you recommend is the best way to optimize the SEO for the site? I want to add more structured data and the current Ghost offerings are very limited.
Thanks! You'd need to use the code injection feature. You could write a schema template and then paste it into each posts code injection and update the contents for the relevant post.
WordPress definitely wins for structured data! Maybe Ghost will catch up with version 6? 🤞
@@dave-swift thanks for that, Dave. What’s the best way of creating structured data for code injection that you would recommend?
www.google.com/webmasters/markup-helper/u/0/
Test with: validator.schema.org
Check my SkillJet course on Schema: skilljet.io/courses/schema-markup-guide/
Dave. how do you back up your ghost website?
In WordPress, there are solutions like Updraft Plus, All in One WP Migration, etc. to backup complete website. I couldn't find a similar solution in Ghost.
Hey Sachinkhyalia, there is a script on Github called Wraith. It automates the backup process to nearly any cloud provider. I go through the setup and automate cloud backups to Google Drive in my course. You can find it here: profitabletools.com/product/self-host-ghost/
Hi, can you explain how to connect a domain to ghost. I need real basic steps because I'm not really tech savvy I just signed up for ghost trial but want to connect a domain later on. I dont know all the technology terms, so help on this matter would be great appreciated. I enjoyed your video on how to get started in ghost. I thought I'd mention I do have a domain already bought on namesilo, but not sure how to connect to ghost with all the codes and however this works is beyond me. Please explain how to connect a domain to ghost and if anything else I have to do in my domain provider to get it connected. Thank you, SM
Hi Sally -- thanks for watching and commenting.
Go to Ghost(Pro) > Domain to connect your domain.
You'll need to create some DNS records on Namesilo
Here are the details from Ghost: ghost.org/help/using-custom-domains/
Here is how to create DNS records with Namesilo: www.namesilo.com/support/v2/articles/domain-manager/dns-manager
If you have trouble, I recommend connecting with Namesilo support as they will have access to your account and can probably set these up for you.
Hi Dave I've migrated a bunch of articles from WP to ghost, but none of them are connected to main page by tags or any other meta data. So nobody can explain how to connect them to the homepage. Do I have to make tag pages? Do they automatically populate after that?
Hey Jon,
I'm not sure I totally follow.
You imported some posts and you want the to show up on your Latest Posts in your home page but they don't?
Covering the basics here, but did you make sure they didn't import as unpublished?
Also, you mention tags. When you import the articles form WP to Ghost, you can import the existing categories & tags. Did you import any of that data?
Tag pages are created automatically. It's not something you should have to do manually.
What happened to the videos sound?
Sounds fine to me? What did you notice?
@@dave-swift not sure why but when I open up your video it has no sound.
I just had the same problem when trying to watch this video on the big screen TV. It seems to be fine now that I'm on my iMac. Something to look into though.
Thank you! This was really useful :)
Glad it was helpful!
Great Video 👍
Thanks 👍
Great video. One question that I can't seem to find an answer to - is there an affiliate program built in?
Not for me to promote Ghost, I see that. But a way for me to have affiliates promote my Paid content...
No there isn’t. You’d have to use a 3rd party SaaS.
@@dave-swift Any recommendations? Have you used any for your biz?
I like (& have used) Rewardful: profitable.tools/rewardful
Great one!
Thanks!
Very helpful!
Glad it was helpful!
I looked for a free alternative to this commercial software.
Anyways, for this tutorial we'll be using this paid way of running said software instead of teaching you how to do this for free
Really helpful video. Which Ghost theme are you using for your site?
Hey Dan,
I'm using a modified version of the Solo theme on my daveswift.com website.
Thanks for the comment! Glad the video was helpful.