For the past few weeks, if not months, I have been getting excited about using Ghost.org instead of WordPress. It just seems so much more suited to what I want out of a blog. For those who don't know, Ghost.org is like a combination of WordPress, Patreon, and MailChimp, three services I am currently using. It's fast, and seemingly simple to use, and could be a good way to provide a valuable membership service.

I read an article comparing WordPress and Ghost that lauded WordPress for its ease of use, which I scoffed at. If you are a complete amateur like me, WordPress is extremely hard to use. It is extremely unintuitive, and you have to know how to modify the back end to be able to customise things the way you like.

Every once in a while I get a 500 error, which means you can't access the site, although it goes away soon enough, and I have tried all manner of things to make the website faster, but I am probably making an amateur mistake somewhere. Google penalizes websites like this, so I think I am really losing out by being on WordPress.

For some simple things you need to download plugins, which is fine, except that too many plugins can make the website extremely laggy. Being able to make a fast website on WordPress while having the functionality I want requires a whole lot of knowledge that is simply prohibitive to an amateur like me.

So, I have been seriously considering moving over to Ghost.org. If I am to do so, however, there are a whole lot of things I need to consider.

I would have to modify a lot of the blog posts here before migrating to make it easier to do so (I have to make all the categories into tags, but I have been lazy on a lot of posts and haven't been selecting categories in the first place, my first mistake).

I would also have to establish the pages in a way I like. I'm not sure I could customise the pages to have a black border around the pictures in this style that I like, although I'm sure I could figure something out.

One problem my friend had using Ghost.org was a drop in traffic, but I don't have much traffic to start off with.

I will also have to think about how to establish a membership section (don't worry this daily blog will always be free). I've been wanting to provide deeper content for people who want it but it takes a lot of time and effort to do so! A more efficient way for people to support my work in an environment I control would be much appreciated!

Either way, I think I'll try Ghost out for a while and see how I like it then report back to you.