I was experienceing really poor SEO results for my previous ghost site (self hosted on digital ocean). Never understood why...
I'm guessing it's because the ghost site was noticeably faster and was mobile friendly, which my old WordPress site was not. I didn't do any SEO tuning or anything.
More people should do this. Recent security issues of WP is kinda horrific, but then again it always been a security nightmare. It makes me sad that people don't realize it, the only answer you get is: " but it's so popular so it must be good", well smoking has also been popular - it doesn't mean it's good for you.