How I Set Up My Website & Blog – The Complete Outline

Starting off the new year, I would like to frame an endeavor I hope to have completed well before the next January 1st.  It has been several months since I launched my own self-hosted website and blog.  I have already written one post on the topic, of why I chose Ghost over WordPress.  Now, I plan to extrapolate and explain the entire process through a series of articles.

To begin, this post is merely the outline of the major subject areas.  As 2022 rolls on, I will “fill in” the outline with appropriate links as articles are written.  But at the least, the outline itself should provide a groundwork for understanding my planning methodology, the decisions I made, and the final executions.  If you are interested in other angles I may have missed, please leave a comment, and I will add your suggestions in!

Full Website Setup Outline (last updated 11/20/2022)

Part I: Planning and Framework

(1.1) Why Self Host Your Blog? (added 01/29/2022)

(1.2) Choosing Between Ghost.org and Self-Hosting (added 03/02/2022)

(1.3) Why I Chose Ghost over WordPress

(1.4) How I Set Up My Website’s Hostname (added 05/07/2022)

(1.5) Reserving My Cloud Server with Digital Ocean (added 11/20/2022)

(1.6) How Much Does It Cost to Host My Blog? (added 08/29/2022)

Part II: Getting Started with Content

(2.1) Choosing a Ghost Theme

(2.2) Using the Ghost Editor

(2.3) Transferring My WordPress Legacy Content to Ghost

(2.4) Creating the Major Pages

(2.5) Managing Metadata and Title Cards

(2.6) Copying & Coding the In The Sky Timers

Part III: Interfacing to the Internet

(3.1) Social media setup

(3.2) Zapier and Integrations

(3.3) The Pains of Email Setup with mailgun

(3.4) Adding and then Removing Google Analytics

Part IV: Advanced Technical Tasks

(4.1) Setting Up Comments with Commento

(4.2) Custom Edits to My Website’s Ghost Theme

(4.3) Setting Up Recurring SSL Certificate Renewals

(4.4) Securing the Website’s Server