Track: Content Operations
Estimated time: 8 minutes
Difficulty: Beginner
What this covers
This module walks through the end-to-end process of publishing a weekly blog post to Ghost — from pasting in the content through to hitting publish.
This task can be independent or one step in the Newsletter Cascade: the same article will later be distributed as a Beehiiv newsletter and a LinkedIn newsletter, with social posts driving traffic back to this Ghost URL.
Step-by-step reference
Step 1 — Log in and create a new post
Go to your Ghost admin panel and log in. Click the + button or "New post" to open a blank editor. You're now in the Ghost editor canvas.
Step 2 — Paste in the article content
Copy the full article text from the approved Google Doc. Paste it directly into the Ghost editor body. The headings, paragraphs, and structure should carry over. Do a quick scan to confirm heading levels look right — minor formatting tweaks are fine but not required at this stage.
Step 3 — Add the header image
Click into a blank area at the top of the canvas to create an insertion point. Use the block insert menu (the + icon that appears on a new line) to add an image. Drag your pre-prepared header image file directly from your local folder into the upload area.
- Add a caption: pull a short phrase from the body of the article — something descriptive that could stand alone.
- Add alt text: describe what is literally in the image, then work in a relevant keyword where it reads naturally. Alt text is primarily for accessibility; the keyword is a secondary benefit.
Step 4 — Configure the post settings (sidebar)
Open the post settings panel (gear icon, top right). Work through these fields:
| Field | What to do |
|---|---|
| Slug | Ghost auto-generates one. Review it — shorten if too long, remove stop words. |
| Tags | Add 1–3 relevant tags (e.g. digital-marketing, marketing-excellence). Tags will be standardised across the site in a future update. |
| Excerpt | Write 1–2 sentences summarising the post. This appears on the homepage card below the post title. |
| Template | Select the full background image template (recommended default). |
Step 5 — Add metadata
Still in the post settings panel, scroll to the Meta section:
- Meta title: Use the article's H1, or a close variant optimised for search.
- Meta description: Write 1–2 sentences (150–160 characters) that describe the article for search results. This is what Google displays in the snippet below the link.
- Canonical URL: Leave blank. This is original content — no canonical reference needed.
The table of contents (if your Ghost theme supports it) will be auto-generated from your headings. Leave it enabled — Google treats it as a positive signal.
Step 6 — Publish
Click Publish (top right). Confirm in the publish dialog.
Step 7 — QC the live post
Open the published URL in a browser and scroll through the full post:
- Does the header image display correctly? (Note: text-over-face overlap in the hero area is a known theme behaviour — acceptable.)
- Do all headings and paragraph breaks look right?
- Is the excerpt showing on the homepage blog listing?
- Does the meta title/description look right if you paste the URL into a social preview tool?
If anything looks wrong, return to the Ghost editor and correct before moving on.
Rules + edge cases
If the slug auto-generates something long or weird — edit it manually before publishing. Keep it under 5–6 words, hyphens only, no special characters.
If you don't have a header image ready — do not publish without one. Hold the post as a draft and flag in Discord. Publishing without a header image breaks the visual layout on the homepage.
If Ghost pastes the content with broken formatting — the most common issue is heading levels coming in wrong (e.g. H2s appearing as H3s). Fix manually using the Ghost text toolbar. Do not re-paste from a different source without checking first.
If the excerpt field is left blank — Ghost will auto-pull the first sentence of the article. This is usually fine but often pulls in a subheadline or an awkward fragment. Always write a custom excerpt.
If you're unsure about tags — use digital-marketing as a safe default until the tag taxonomy is updated. Don't create new tags without checking with Harry first.
Escalation signal: If the post publishes but does not appear on the homepage after 2 minutes, or if the URL returns a 404, do not troubleshoot alone — ping Harry directly.
Self-assessment checklist
Before moving to the next module, confirm you can do all of the following without referring back to this page:
- I can create a new post in Ghost and paste in formatted article content
- I can add a header image with a caption and correct alt text
- I can configure the slug, tags, excerpt, and template in the post settings
- I can write a meta title and meta description, and I know where to enter them
- I know when to leave the canonical URL blank
- I can QC a published post and identify the most common visual issues