How I Set Up My Affiliate Site on Ghost CMS (A Step-by-Step Guide)
I'm sitting in my Uber at 2 a.m., waiting for a fare, editing a Ghost CMS post on my phone with one good eye. Sounds crazy, right? But that's how I've been building my affiliate site at night while driving during the day. My wife says I need to make $100 a day from this thing before I retire at 62. So far I'm at $12. But I'm not giving up — because Ghost CMS is the only platform that doesn't get in my way.
When I first looked into affiliate sites, everyone said use WordPress. I tried it. Too many plugins, too much bloat, constant updates to break something. Then I found Ghost. It's lean, fast, and built for writers. In this guide, I'll walk you through exactly how I set up my affiliate site on Ghost — no BS, just the steps that got me from zero to publishing my first review.
Why Ghost CMS for Affiliate Sites?
Most affiliate site gurus won't mention Ghost because they're making money selling WordPress courses. But here's the truth: Ghost is faster out of the box, easier to maintain, and Google loves fast sites. I don't have to worry about plugin vulnerabilities or broken links from an update. Plus, the editor is distraction-free — exactly what you need when you're writing a 2,000-word Amazon review at 11 p.m.
The downside? Ghost doesn't have a plugin ecosystem. You can't just install an Amazon affiliate plugin and call it a day. You have to get your hands a little dirty with code. But once you set it up, it runs forever.
Step 1: Hosting and Installation
For an affiliate site, you don't need managed Ghost hosting that costs $30/month. I went with DigitalOcean (use my link? hah — no, just find a $6 droplet). I followed Ghost's one-click install in the marketplace. It took about 15 minutes. If you're not comfortable with a terminal, look up a YouTube video — there are plenty.
Then you need a domain. I bought mine from Namecheap for $9. Point the DNS to your droplet, wait an hour, and you're live. That's it. No themes to buy — Ghost comes with a clean default theme that works fine for affiliate content.
Step 2: Configuring Ghost for Affiliate Content
Here's where Ghost differs from WordPress. You need to turn off the membership features unless you're selling subscriptions. Go into Settings → Membership and disable subscriptions. Otherwise, Ghost will show login prompts to your readers — and you don't want that.
Next, you need to add affiliate links. Ghost uses a code injection feature for this. Go to Settings → Code injection and paste your Amazon Associates tracking code in the site header. For individual links, just use the HTML card in the editor — I write <a href="your-affiliate-link" rel="nofollow sponsored">check price on Amazon</a>
Pro tip: Set up custom redirects for your affiliate links so you don't have to update the URL everywhere if your affiliate program changes. Ghost has a redirects.yaml file for that.
Step 3: Writing Content That Actually Ranks
I'm not a writer. I'm a driver with a high school diploma. But I've learned that Google rewards honest, helpful content, not fluff. So I write reviews like I'm talking to a friend who's sitting in my back seat.
My first post was "Best Dash Cam Under $100" — I own two of them and tested them in my Uber. I included photos I took with my own phone, real video footage, and honest pros and cons. That post gets about 50 visitors a day now. Not huge, but it earns me $1.50 a day. For niche affiliate sites, long-form content (1,500-2,500 words) with original photos works better than short lists.
One thing I always do: interlink my own posts. If I write about phone mounts, I link to my dash cam review where relevant. This keeps people on my site longer. Speaking of which, if you're struggling with picking a niche, read my guide on [INTERNAL LINK: niche selection for affiliate sites] — it'll save you from making the same mistake I did (I started with "best cat toys" and nobody searched for it).
Step 4: SEO and Speed Tweaks
Ghost has built-in SEO features — you can edit meta titles and descriptions for every post. I use a free keyword research tool (AnswerThePublic) to find questions people ask, then I answer them. No keyword stuffing, just natural language.
The real magic is speed. Ghost sites load in under 2 seconds even on cheap hosting. I added a CDN through Cloudflare (free tier) and set up caching. Google's Core Web Vitals? All green. That matters more than backlinks for a small site.
Final Thoughts (From My Driver's Seat)
Look, I'm not making $100 a day yet. But my Ghost affiliate site is growing, I'm learning, and I'm not paying for expensive plugins. If I can do this between fares with one good eye, you can too. The key is to stop overthinking and start publishing.
I'm tracking every number — traffic, earnings, costs — on my dashboard at jims.one. You can see the real results, not some fake guru screenshot. This is the slow, honest grind, and I'm okay with that.
Watch the real numbers at jims.one — I'm not pretending this is easy.