Why Ghost is Great for A Podcast Website

I'm a huge fan of WordPress.

The world's most popular Content Management System (CMS) is what puts food on the table for my family. I produce 3 podcasts and two YouTube channels about it.

But it's not always the best solution for a podcaster. Especially if you're a podcaster that doesn't have the time or the need to learn & scale a site of which WordPress has the potential to handle.

Ghost, which is what powers this website, is a fantastic alternative.

In today's video, I highlight some of my favorite features Ghost provides and why they might work for you!

Why Ghost?

Like podcasting, Ghost is an open source solution.

I think if you're investing in your RSS feed, staying away from platform lock-in from the likes of YouTube or Spotify, opting for your own "dot com" on an open platform makes really good sense.

While you might think it appeals only to techies or a more cult-like follwing, what you realize in the longterm is that open platforms give you more freedom. Freedom to move your content/data around, freedom to shape the experience, and freedom to decide if you want to play nice with other tech giants.

I encourage you to watch the video above to hear me go deeper into the following points, but here they are for brevity sake.

1. Ease of use: This is the clear reason to choose Ghost over any other platform. It's a blog and a newsletter in one – and they make the whole thing a breeze to manage.
2. Hosting: You can host your own version of Ghost on your own servers or opt to sign up to Ghost hosting, which is quite affordable compared to other platforms.
3. Analytics: This buckets into the ease of use part, but I do give it a special call out because the Ghost team presents it so seamlessly that you don't have to think critically about it.
4. Payment/Subscribers: I did forget to mention this in the video, but Ghost comes with built-in membership to the newsletter (and website content) with payment options built in. Obviously this is a massive win for podcasters that are seeking to monetize their publication.

Some drawbacks worth mentioning:

1. Learning curve: Like everything else, there's a small learning curve. Albeit, this is the easiest platform for publishing a blog and newsletter I've ever used. You still might need a weekend to get comfortable with it.
2. Integrations/Plugins: If you're coming from the WordPress world, Ghost is nowhere near as "off the shelf" extensible as what you're used to. They have a solid set of integrations like any other SaaS offering, but if there are business critical apps you need your site to talk to, be sure to check their integration page first.
3. Themes: Another double-edge sword. They have great looking themes you can choose from, but you're not dragging and dropping any layouts here. You have the choice to toggle some style and layout options, but if you're used to an Elementor or Wix style approach – you won't find that here.

Conclusion

You can't go wrong with Ghost if your main objective is to build a newsletter and home base for your podcast content.

You can signup for free and take it for a spin before you fork over any hard earned sponsorship money. DM me on LinkedIn if you have any questions, I'm happy to help.

I'm sponsored by Ghost, but am under no direction to write this article, nor did the team at Ghost have any input. These are all of my own thoughts as a Ghost customer, and a fan of WordPress! ;)