The features of the characteristic matrix used in linear intensity correlation reconstruction methods are directly related to the quality of ghost imaging. In order to suppress the noise caused by the off-diagonal elements in the characteristic matrix, we propose a reconstruction method for ghost imaging called scalar-matrix-structured ghost imaging (SMGI). The characteristic matrix is made to approximate a scalar matrix by modifying the measurement matrix. Experimental results show that SMGI improves the peak signal-to-noise ratio of the object reconstruction significantly compared with differential ghost imaging, even in the case of a nonzero two-arm longitudinal difference, which is a promising result for practical applications.of China (2013AA122901); National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (61571427); Youth Innovation Promotion Association of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (2013162).