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Ghost Blogging: What It Is and the Top 5 Platforms

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Ghost Blogging: What It Is and the Top 5 Platforms

Read time 11 min read
Ghost Blogging: What It Is and the Top 5 Platforms

Improve your content marketing + SEO in 60 seconds! Diib uses the power of big data to help you quickly and easily increase your traffic and rankings. We’ll even let you know if you already deserve to rank higher for certain keywords.

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Ghost Blogging: What It Is and the Top 5 Platforms

Personalized blogs have taken a back seat since the popularity of social media. Yet, if you are aware of the modern blogging techniques, you can pull a substantial number of visitors to your site. 

The term “ghostwriters” is not unfamiliar to netizens. Similarly, when it comes to blogging, ghost bloggers are ghostwriters who are mainly focused on producing high-quality content for blogs. Since we have established that the blogging medium needs a revamp, today’s blogging platforms can arm you to provide a more substantial online presence for your audience, aside from the traditional social media. 

FACTS: SEO leads have a 14.6% close rate, while outbound leads (such as direct mail or print advertising) have a 1.7% close rate. In fact, 72% of online marketers describe content creation as their most effective SEO tactic. (optinmonster)

What is Ghost Blogging?

As is evident from the name, ghost blogging is a blogging type where authors get hired to write the content, but they never get the credit for the work done. People used to rely on ghost blogging for personal blogs, but recently, people are using them for various media. It includes blog posts, internet content, newspaper articles, songs, and even books. 

Blogging platforms are an excellent way for businesses to flourish. These businesses can discuss opinions, give feedback, and market the products. It makes their relationship with their customers unique and much more personal. 

Even though people like to say that anyone can write, it is far from writing articles that can captivate the audience. Few people possess that kind of power over their readers, and hence, blog-owners and businesses turn to ghostwriters for quality content creation. When people are new to the businesses they are trying to establish, getting into the blogosphere can be daunting. This phase is where ghost bloggers and blogging platforms come to the rescue. 

What are Ghost Blogging Platforms?

Ghost blogging platform is a communication system that implements a broadcast style of publishing articles and blog posts about opinions and product reviews and selling. These platforms allow businesses and creators to deliver content through websites, feed syndications, social networks, and even email. A renowned blogging platform enables ghost bloggers to write compelling articles to enable direct reader participation with the host and turn the site traffic to a maximum. 

Blogging Platform Features?

Here are three standard features every blogging platform out there strictly adhered to provide the optimum output:

  • Maintenance: When you hand over your blog’s content to a ghost blogger and a blogging platform, you also hand over the responsibility for maintenance. You do not need to worry about software updates, CSS/HTML editing, backups, and server hacks. These issues are, and should be, handled efficiently by the platform.
  • Ease of use: Every platform tends to be user friendly to various degrees. Some give you total control; others help you get started quickly. Some platforms pay you for blogging, and others allow you to use a domain for free. 
  • Customization: Just like the options for using these venues, you get a variety of customization options in the form of theme sets, fonts, and image selection, etc. Despite what they offer, you are never indeed in control of all the settings. This aspect is a blessing in disguise because it lets you focus on what is essential.

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Ghost Blogging as a Career

Ghostwriting had been around for many decades when ghost blogging started becoming popular. Since the advent of computer technology and the internet, the demand for ghostwriters for blogs has increased. If you are a writer and want to showcase your talent online, starting your blog is a great way to get started.

Establishing a strong identity is an essential factor to cement yourself as a ghost blogger. Because of increased demands, ghostwriting is already a saturated field. With intense competition, you need to evolve some writing habits that distinguish your work from the rest of the hodge-podge. It would help if you kept in mind that companies and individual clients work with a writer they can trust in quality and deliverability. It is essential to create an online persona, build work relationships, get additional clients, and work based on your work quality.

Some of the popular ways people use ghost blogging as a successful career are writing jobs, paid or free. Some platform outlets pay you based on your ability to rank up. To get the maximum pay, writers should show that their recent work should be completely free of grammatical mistakes and format issues. 

You can also directly hit popular blogs about topics that interest you to have an easier time writing on such topics. 

If you want to adopt ghostwriting as a career, you need to realize that it is like any other business at the end of the day. Your value is as much as your work, and that hard work is your key to the top. It takes a fair amount of relationship-building to build a network around you to make yourself known. If you still do not wish to build this path as your only career path, you can keep ghost blogging as a side-gig for extra income. 

Should You Try Free Blogging Platforms?

It is a valid question to ask if you are starting your blog: “Should you try free platforms, to begin with?” 

It is no secret that blogging can be an expensive endeavor. If you are a beginner, you would not want to invest in something which you cannot predict because you do not know how steep the learning curve can get. 

For such situations, it is better to experiment with a free platform as a failsafe. Many free platforms allow you to figure out if your blog has potential; a catchy title helps you weigh your content against the competition and test your niche ideas without wasting a single penny. 

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However, if you want to earn from your blogging, then opting for free blogging sites would be ill-advised. It depends upon the reason for your using the platform.

Once you have decided to opt for a blogging platform, your next question should be which platform is the best for you. The most straightforward answer to that is it depends on what you want to accomplish. 

Following is a detailed ghost blogging platform review, considering what options these platforms provide to their users, which one is the best among them, and why.

 The Top 5 Best Ghost Blogging Platforms

  • Ghost – best blogging control
  • WordPress – most popular blogging platform
  • Blogger – best free blogging platform
  • Wix – best website builder
  • Tumblr – the best microblogging site

Even if you have never written a blog before, this ghost blogging platform review can make the whole process seem easier with their user-friendly options and customization as per your needs. 

 1. Ghost

Ghost is an open-source platform for publishers, businesses, entrepreneurs, and developers. It allows you to post your content and earn money from it through a Ghost blog.

Another great benefit of Ghost is that the platform has an email newsletter built-in and all posts are automatically SEO-optimized. You can also allow selected readers to pay a premium to get to your content. This platform is an excellent solution for anyone looking to make money from blogging via ghost self-hosted and ghost personal blogs. These unique features make Ghost top our ghost blogging platform review. Here is an example of Ghost:

Ghost Blogging: What It Is and the Top 5 Platforms

(Image Credit: Elegant Themes)

 2. WordPress

WordPress is world renown for the content management system, controlling one-third of the CMS market share. It is not a coincidence that the platform has more than 400 million readers every month. However, it started as a blogging tool for content creators. 

WordPress has two versions: WordPress.org and WordPress.com. The .org is a free, open-source solution. It is ghost self-hosted, which means all you need to do is buy a domain and you are good to go. WordPress does not have a ghost personal blog feature for free. You have to purchase a domain from them to personalize your content. 

The .com version has everything offered up on a plate. Everything gets handled for you. You can quickly start on this platform, but the customization options are limited; you have less freedom and flexibility to publish and edit your content. 

With WordPress.org, 75,000+ ghost themes are fully customizable. There are more than 57,000 plugins as well to embellish your website. The image below shows the WordPress Dashboard and other tools you can use:

Ghost Blogging: What It Is and the Top 5 Platforms

(Image Credit: WP Hive)

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 3. Blogger

If you are talking about the history of blogging, then, undoubtedly, Blogger was the one that started it all. Many old-school bloggers started on the platform, and it has been around for more than two decades. Since Google owns the platform, it is free to use, and you can go ahead and let Google handle the subdomain as a default setting. Alternatively, you can also buy a domain if you want. 

The platform is exceptionally user-friendly. You can see all your statistics in-depth to learn more about your audience. You can generate revenue using Google AdSense, which puts targeted ads to direct traffic to your blog. 

Ghost Blogging: What It Is and the Top 5 Platforms

(Image Credit: Blogger)

 4. Wix

For beginners, Wix is a perfect place to build a website from scratch. Many personal blogs and small businesses prefer this platform because it is easy to use and affordable. With the built-in artificial professional website tool, you can have a website built and running in as little as 10 minutes. You even do have to know any coding or design knowledge to create a site for yourself. 

There are more than 500 templates to get started, and you can customize everything with a simple drag-and-drop approach. 

Businesses shouldn’t choose their free-forever plan because that would mean staying on their Wix subdomain. It is better to get on the paid plans, which start at $13 per month. This way, you can get a domain name and get the first year free. 

They even have a mobile app to keep things on the go. Below is an example of the tools available with Wix:

Ghost Blogging: What It Is and the Top 5 Platforms

 5. Tumblr

Tumblr is an easy outlet to express your thoughts without getting into the frenzy of building a website for doing so. Based on its social media feel, your content has a higher chance of visibility and traffic. You can also reshare content posted by other users and assemble a curated post timeline for you and your readers. 

Since it is a space for microbloggers, businesses have not seen overly enthusiastic users’ responses and tend to stay away. If you want to look professional, Tumblr might not be the platform for you.

The most significant aspect of using Tumblr is that it is 100% free and always will be. Here is an example of a Tumblr blog:

Ghost Blogging: What It Is and the Top 5 Platforms

(Image Credit: PCWorld)

Ghost Blogging Platform – A Detailed Look

What makes Ghost the best publishing blogging platform out there? Following is a detailed look at the platform, the ghost themes available on the platform, a Ghost vs WordPress comparison, and its ghost blogging github analysis.

History

Ghost was first launched in November 2012 by a WordPress theme developer John O’Nohan and Hannah Wolfe, a long-term friend. Its creation created a platform that allows bloggers to start their websites without thinking about search engine optimization and page-loading speeds, and other blogging technical aspects. Users can publish their articles without any hassle. 

Ghost is set-up to be a not-for-profit company, which means all the money they generate goes to product development. Its headquarters are in Singapore, by the name of Ghost Foundation. The set-up got its initial funding through Kickstarter. The campaign garnered an astounding $254,290 in 2013, and more than 5,000 people backed the project.

As of writing this, Ghost has 1,384,932 users. 

Ghost vs. WordPress

Since Ghost began as a WordPress subsidiary, it is only natural to wonder which is the best of the two. Following is a detailed Ghost vs WordPress comparison:

  • PricingGhost lies around $29 per month, whereas WordPress starts at $35 per month
  • SEO servicesGhost has native SEO services, unlike WordPress, where you have to pay $199 per year to get these services
  • MembershipsGhost allows memberships, whereas WordPress does not allow memberships unless you get an extra plugin for $199 per annum
  • Global Content Delivery NetworkWhen it comes to Global CDN, Ghost has the upper hand over WordPress, where you have to pay $12 per month to avail of this service
  • Email newslettersFor Ghost users, this feature comes free, but for WordPress users, there is an app that you can buy for $10 per month
  • SubscriptionsGhost provides free subscriptions, but for WordPress, you can avail of the same service at $199 per year
  • SpeedGhost is faster than WordPress
  • SecurityWordPress is known for its regular vulnerabilities, unlike Ghost
  • Design When doing a Ghost vs WordPress, you cannot overlook the ergonomics, and Ghost has a relatively modern look and design than WordPress
  • Native REST APIGhost comes with Native REST API in the core, but WordPress does not
  • Open-sourceBoth Ghost and WordPress are open-source platforms

With Ghost, all things revolve around the content you need to publish. The SEO settings are built-in and automatic. WordPress better equips you to handle a full business website or an advanced functionality out of a platform. 

If you want to build a sustainable membership business, then Ghost is your answer. Moreover, if you need an average ghost self-hosted blog or even ghost personal blogs, Ghost has all the necessary tools.

Ghost-Themes

Another fantastic feature of Ghost is the ghost themes, which are abundant and free. Following is a list of the most used themes on the platform:

  • Attila
  • Vapor
  • Saga (Image Below)
  • Crisp
  • ABC theme
  • Ghostium
  • GhostScroll
  • Mnml
  • Ghostwriter and many more

Ghost Blogging: What It Is and the Top 5 Platforms

All themes have full-site image features that transform the viewing experience. There are helpful sidebars on some of the themes that make the reader experience interactive and engaging. 

Ghost-GitHub for Beginners

There are two ways to get started at GitHub to install ghost, logging in and keeping track of the Ghost development via ghost blogging github. Fair warning, this might get a little technical for some people. Method one is for beginners or bloggers as it is less technical. The second method is purely for developers who are familiar with ghost github. 

Method One: For Bloggers

If you want a Ghost blog up and running, you need to perform the following steps:

  1. Install ghost by installing Node.js on which it is programmed (Ghost requires Node v0.10)
  2. Download Ghost package from ghost.org
  3. Create a directory where you would be running the code and unzip the package to that location
  4. Fire up a terminal via command prompt in Windows and change the directory to the root of the Ghost application
  5. Run npm install –production command for installing node dependenciesType npm start to run Ghost
  6. Visit http://localhost:2368/ in your web browser or go to http://localhost:2368/ghost to log in

Method Two: For Developers

  1. Get git clone to get Ghost started
  2. If you are familiar with the ghost blogging github, start building some assets, like SASS and JavaScript templates
  3. Ghost github method needs you to have Ruby and other prerequisite software

Diib®: Check the Effectiveness of Your Ghost Blogging Platform Today!

Although many companies consider ghost blogging unethical for fear of cheating their clientele, blog-owners still seek a highly sought-after job. More brands are turning to ghost blogging to appeal to a broader audience. There are plenty of ways of getting the perfect blog for your businesses, using a reputed platform. Diib Digital offers a comprehensive User Dashboard that can give you the most up-to-date metrics on your ghost blogging platform effectiveness and campaigns as a whole. Here are some of the features that set us apart from the crowd:

  • Keyword, backlink, and indexing monitoring and tracking tools
  • Google Core Algorithm monitoring
  • Blog campaign monitoring
  • Alerts to broken pages where you have backlinks (404 checker)
  • Alerts and Objective that guide you to strengthen your website
  • Monthly call with a growth expert

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FAQ’s

Ghost blogging and publishing is when an author writes content for a blog and it is published anonymously. This means that when a user reads the content they will not know who the real author is.

Tests have shown that Ghost is 1,900% faster than WordPress. This is because Node. js a modern technology stack powers Ghost and makes it faster. If you are looking at the speed of a website to determine if it is better Ghost would win in the case of which is better Ghost or WordPress.

There are many different blogging platforms and they are each very useful in different ways. Here are just few examples of some of the best blogging platforms:

  • Wix is a blogging platform with excellent drag-and-drop features.
  • WordPress.org is an open source blogging platform.
  • Squarespace is the best blogging platform for businesses with visual-based products.
  • Medium is a great choice for a traditional blog site.
  • Blogger is the best blogging platform for personal blogs.

If you are looking for a place to blog for free there are a couple of choices: WordPress, Blogger, Weebly, and Penzu are few options. However, WordPress also has options that you will need to pay for and puts ads in the free blogs.

WordPress is an open-source software that is free. However, there are other tools and options that you can pay for that could make blogging easier for you. If you can get what you want done without those tools then you can use WordPress 100% free.

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Daniel Urmann

Author Bio:

Daniel Urmann is the co-founder of Diib.com. Over the past 17 years Daniel has helped thousands of business grow online through SEO, social media, and paid advertising. Today, Diib helps over 150,000 business globally grow online with their SaaS offerings. Daniel’s interest include SMB analytics, big data, predictive analytics, enterprise and SMB search engine optimization (SEO), CRO optimization, social media advertising, A/B testing, programatic and geo-targeting, PPC, and e-commerce. He holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) focused in Finance and E-commerce from Cornell University – S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management.

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