Our community is a treasure trove of knowledge, experience, and creativity, especially when it comes to using Ghost. Questions of the week are an opportunity to share and learn from these resources.
As we count down the short 34 days to the New Year, it’s also time to think about New Year’s resolutions. For many, this is the perfect opportunity to finally start that blog, magazine, or publication they’ve been dreaming of. Let’s support those new to Ghost by offering some helpful answers to this question:
What advice would you give to someone just starting out with Ghost?
Miss our previous questions? Check them out below!
Don’t get stuck on customizing your site too much. The number one mistake we see new publishers make is spending lots of time trying to come up with a perfect design, putting in lots of effort to tweak their theme, and sometimes getting lost in the details.
In reality, and especially when you’re getting started, the most important thing (by far) is publishing great content on a consistent schedule. You don’t need a perfect site from day 1 to build a successful publication, but you do need great content to attract an audience.
@prschulz really gave one of the best answers you can here. It’s all about the content!
My advice here would be to make sure you spend enough time on the copy around your content, too. Nailing your CTAs, site descriptions, and other language is important for setting the tone of your publication.
Writing this kind of copy isn’t always easy. Using something like ChatGPT can be useful here, especially if you’re able to provide a lot of info upfront about your audience, topic, style, tone, etc.
An even better resource is our Resources for independent publishers, which is a library of resources to help you share content, grow your audience, and build a subscription business.
Here’s an example, taken from our biweekly newsletter, on refining your marketing copy: