How to build a membership site using Ghost
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ส.ค. 2024
- Ghost is a powerful CMS, but did you know you can also use their Member settings to create a paid membership site and community? In this video, I walk you through the basic steps to set one up in no time.
❤️ Start your 14-day trial of Ghost (affiliate link)*: ghost.org/?via=david81
🔗 LINKS
Community integrations for Ghost: ghost.org/integrations/?tag=c...
Membership site notes: • How To Create a Succes...
🎯 CHAPTERS
0:00 Intro
0:25 What is a membership site
01:06 Membership settings
03:54 Overview of Portal
05:20 Posts and members information
06:48 Close
🤔 What questions do you have?
*I am currently a staff writer at Ghost. I get a small commission if you use the affiliate link that helps support this channel. Thank you for watching!
Thank you!
My pleasure!
This looks so killer! Really great video
Thank you!
Great informative and clear tutorials David! One Q: is it possible building memberships without a Stripe account? (I am a non and outside US citizen...)
This is perfect!
Thank you!
Btw, you can apply member-only status to specific pages and posts (I saw this question, but for some reason, I can't reply directly to it).
@@DavidRamosAuthor thanks man! Yh, I realised as you continued the video, so I deleted the question.
@@joelstephenson8017 oh cool. Feel free to drop any other questions you might have!
@@DavidRamosAuthor yeah, I just came across a problem. I'm trying to limit the amount if google which I let into my life, and in the sign up process, ghost is using a google cookie that I cannot avoid. If I disable it, the signup process doesn't work. What is that google cookie doing there? Will ghost collect meta data from people that will use my sight?
I have ghost in my docker, but cannot change my page...
Great tutorial.. but I have a few questions..🙂
1: Can you offer anything you want in the paid subscription I want to offer?
Like for example digital products? Can I offer that( ebooks, printables,music files)to the paid members under a paid subscription I create?
2: Is it possible to receive payments through PayPal instead of stripe? Because of where I live, PayPal would be easier to receive payments from the paid subscribers..
3: If you add "plugins" like social media and e-commerce store( like Shopify) doesn't that make the entire website slow down? Wouldn't it be really heavy and then negatively affect the speed of the blog?
Oh and is there a limitation on how many "plugins" you can add to the website?
Thanks, I'd really appreciate it 😁
Great questions Marie! Let me try and point you towards a few good resources.
1. With a paid subscription you can put anything you want behind "paywalls", so technically yes you can sell digital products. You could make a page that houses all of your downloads - and only give access to subscribers. Here's some more on this ghost.org/help/topic/faq/
2. It takes an integration, but it can work if you want to use PayPal ghost.org/integrations/paypal/ The customer support team can definitely answer more specific questions about how this works.
3. Now integrations and plugins work a little differently. One reason Ghost chose the integration route is because of how minimally it impacts your website - so you can have as many as you want and still be super fast ghost.org/integrations/
Hope these help!
David great video, what's your opinion on paid ghost membership versus TH-cam memberships? I already have a small number of free members on ghost. I have recently monitised and now have the TH-cam membership is available to me. I am trying to work out if I do both or focus on one. Your thoughts would be helpful. Thanks.
This is a great question Sue! I would focus on building your Ghost members and leveraging your YT audience to do that ghost.org/resources/content-strategy-creator-funnel/
A big reason is that once you start charging and monetizing, YT takes 30%+ of every membership while Ghost takes 0%. That can be a huge difference once you start gaining traction.
Plus, "owning your audience" - which basically means having access to their email addresses, is important for long-term success.
Can I ask what topic(s) you create content about?
@@DavidRamosAuthor thanks for your speedy reply. That makes a lot of sense. I think that's what my gut was telling me. I really like the ghost platform, so easy to use. I have a baking/cooking channel. th-cam.com/users/SueMareePfeatured
The member pricing seems a bit scary. If I am only offering free memberships and if my site gets a lot of members before it is monitored it could be stressful dealing with the monthly fees. What are your thoughts?
Totally valid concern Ken. I would challenge you to consider what you're building though.
For example, let's say you start with the Starter plan at $9/mo and pay for a year ($108). You gain a bunch of traction and grow your list to 500 subs in just a few months.
Now you have a choice. You could make a low price subscription option ($10-20/mo) and immediately have a positive cash flow (on average 5% of subscribers convert, so you would be earning $250-500 a month with only 500 subscribers).
Or, you could keep you Ghost site free and offer a one-off product on gumroad, like a $40 ebook - which after a few sales, has just paid for your Ghost fees for several years.
Remember that audiences are powerful and capturing their contact info (vs using social media) is extremely lucrative in the long term.
On the other end, let's say it takes you 3 years to build an audience of 500 subscribers. Well all that cost you was $324 ($108x3). And now, you have a subscriber base you can turn into $250-500/mo easily.
So many are so distracted by the downside they completely miss the upside. I"ve built most of my income online with only 4,000 email subscribers. It's take a lot less than people think to change your life.
@@DavidRamosAuthor Thank you! Since I am just starting out I understand it may take awhile to build an audience. Having annual support from 1% of the audience could cover everything. I am intrigued with what Ghost is offering.
@@kjvisual7 That's a great way to look at it. Getting to "sustainability" should always be the first goal.
Thank you David for the video.
1. Is everything you showed on the video exactly the same if I use Ubud from Aspire Themes or Arun Roy from Theme Forest?
2. Are there any differences or advantages in the templates if the theme company is being featured by Ghost?
(Aspire Themes and Ubud is featured but Arun Roy from Theme Forest is not)
3. I'm planning to write in Spanish. I don't know if the math you explained in one of the other comments works as Spanish speaking people may not buy as much as English speaking people or may not have the means. What do you think?
4. I saw the link you shared regarding integration with PayPal, but it doesn't say how to place the PayPal buy button next to the Stripe one (at the same level) so that the audience can choose the payment method. How to solve that?
5. What the name of your website/blog?
6. Finally, why did you stop making videos about Ghost? There are not many TH-camrs talking about it yet.
Thanks man.
J
1. The membership settings will be the same. However, the more advanced themes will usually add options that can either be accessed in Ghost or by doing a little light editing in the files.
2. The themes in the Ghost marketplace are heavily vetted by the staff, which is why there's only a handful of them. Plus, one of the requirements is that they commit to keeping the theme up to date (i.e., Ghost 5 and so on). I would 100% recommend going thru the marketplace instead of a Envato or similar external one.
3. This is a hard question to answer - but I do know Spanish is often the first language English-first businesses will translate their offerings to because of the demand. Spanish TH-camrs are a great example. If anything, you might have less competition or a higher overall upside.
4. This is a good question for the Ghost support team.
5. ramoswriter.com is my current main blog.
6. I got so busy with my business contentclass.org 😅 But I do want to make more tutorials, hopefully this summer. Btw Ghost started their own channel www.youtube.com/@TryGhost
@@DavidRamosAuthor 2. Does your explanation mean, then, quite frankly, that it's much better to get Ubud from Aspire Themes than Arun Roy from Theme Forest?
2.1 Is Ubud from Aspire Themes one of those that is heavily vetted by the Ghost staff?
4. Can I talk to the Ghost Pro support team even if I go with Gloat, a managed hosting service? How?
(Gloat seems much more affordable than Ghost Pro, specially if I have to give all the blog posts, newsletter pieces, for free to the Spanish speaking market)
6. Thank you for the info, I am following the Ghost TH-cam channel and I am following your YT channel as well. Hopefully you get to uploading more videos about Ghost soon.
7. What are your thoughts on Beehiiv?
Their growth marketing tools are bringing new newsletter users/accounts by the thousands. It's growing crazy. And the Beehiiv team keeps adding product features every 2 months, non stop.... I'm on Substack now and trying to decide between moving to Ghost or Beehiiv (not sure what's more convenient, I don't know any coding).
8. Why are you using Kajabi (Min $150/month) for your website when Ghost has website features like static pages?
David, thank you for being so helpful and generous. There's almost no one to talk to about Ghost, lol.
@@MrGheller Ubud is a great option. Definitely stick to the Ghost marketplace.
No, the support will only be available if you subscribe. It's one way they're able to provide great service - by keeping it strict.
Beehiv is great but limited. If you only want to do free things it could be a cool option. Most of the people I work with/advise are trying to turn their newsletters into full-time jobs or business - of which Ghost is the best at.
I've been using Kajabi for about 5+ years because I sell high end courses on there. I wish it was as easy to use as Ghost lol. But I keep it separate for a host of business reasons - mainly to keep my life simple.
@@DavidRamosAuthor One of the challenges if I go with Ghost and Ubud is that I don't code at all. And every little change or variation needs coding for what I see.
Any feasible solutions to this?
And, I would have to choose either Gloat or Midnight to keep the hosting monthly expenses at bay. Ghost Pro becomes too expensive too quickly for me.
Any other better alternatives to this?
but wasn't there a limited number of members I can get on ghost? that would affect the maximum number of memberships I can get then...
If you check out the pricing page you can see that different levels accommodate diff maximum member levels. ghost.org/pricing/ It's a pretty standard way to price a tool like this. Plus, if you have 1000+ members for example, you'll likely be making a very nice multiple of whatever your cost may be.