Hello there! I’m delighted to be back with this bumper guide on how to create your best of 2022 blog post. In this blog I share a plethora of ideas so you can choose one to share your round up of the year.

Why is creating a Best of the year blog post a good idea?

In 2022, this was the year there was an air of “Getting Back Into It” after the pandemic. Every small biz owner I spoke to found themselves in peaks and troughs, working in fits and starts throughout the year even more so than before and it all became rather BUSY just managing to get through. But here’s the thing. If you didn’t do much marketing when it got busy, you can start your engines and may the best bits of the year be yours to celebrate. Obviously, I’m going to focus on the visibility benefits of having such a blog post but also by taking this time to reflect, it doesn’t have to be a OMG I BETTER CHANGE THINGS SO I END ON A HIGH. Repeat after me: your value and sense of self worth does not come from what you did or did not achieve. The reason I wanted to write this guide on how to create your best of 2022 is not only a fabulous opportunity to reflect on how awesome your business is, but also to repurpose the content that worked really well for you in the past year which is actually a lot less work than creating new content as well as being very helpful for your audience and potential clients and customers. So without further ado, here are the ideas on how to create your Best of 2022 blog post

1. Create a slideshow of your favourite images

Your best of 2022 isn’t limited to those with lots of images (looking at you, fabulous photographers!), and it certainly doesn’t always have to be a slideshow set to music.

• Your best selling products
• Your most engaged images from Instagram (check your Instagram Insights for this info)
• Your personal highlights in your business

You could write a blog with a paragraph for each image and then make it into an Instagram Reel in Canva. Of course this is a lush idea and works well if you’re a visual business, but there are many other ways you could present your Best of 2022.

2. Write a Blog about your Top Ten Most Popular Blogs using Google Analytics

One way to present your Best of 2022 is to create a blog post from your 10 most popular blog posts of the past year. This idea makes the assumption that you have Google Analytics installed on your website (check this blog on how to set up Google Analytics) Watch this video on how to use your Google Analytics (if you have the original format of Google Analytics) simply to find out your most popular content (thanks to Fiona Kelly Photography for allowing me to share her stats for this!) If you have GA4 (the newer form of Google Analytics, scroll down!) Watch this video on how to use your Google Analytics (if you have GA4) simply to find out your most popular content Once you’ve got those links to the most popular blogs you’ve written, you can then link to each blog post and add one image from each blog post.

Example on how to create your best of 2022: My top five most-read blog posts on SEO and marketing in 2022

Here you would write a brief opening paragraph to introduce your topic – tell them what you’re about to tell them before diving into your list.

1. 16 Ways to Take Care of Yourself When You Work at A Computer

I know what it’s like being a business owner, you’re sitting for hours at your desk editing / admin-ning / working away on your business, hacking away at the never-ending To Do list. Having a sore neck, back and shoulders (and everything else in between) doesn’t need to be a given when working from your computer. I know from experience on running a full-time online business that self-care is important and gets pushed down the priority list *if only you could just send those final 10 emails already*. Phew. Back in 2017 when I originally wrote this, I asked a few of my favourite people to help me make a list of healthy habits while working at a computer where we share how we all take care of our minds and bodies when sitting at a computer for hours on end. Since then, I’ve modified the list a bit because times and habits change, right?

2. How to attract more local business in 10 steps

If you’re a business that only wants to serve a particular area say for example you have a physical fixed abode like a beauty salon or an estate agent or a lawyer with an office where you receive clients, then this is the blog you need in your life. ADD IMAGE

3. SEO for Beginners – where do I start?

In my role as an expert in SEO for beginners, I get asked a LOT “Where do I start?” so I thought it was about time I wrote this 2000+ beast to break it all down for you. Within the blog post, I’ve linked to other content I’ve created so you can dive in deeper wherever you like. Someone recently messaged me and said this is the most comprehensive guide to SEO for beginners they’ve ever seen. That made me smile 🙂

4. 47 Ideas for Marketing Your Business

One day  I came to tackle my 22 page Google Doc of content ideas and found this that I’ve been sitting on. I’m always harping on to my clients and members about not keeping your best work on your camera roll and YET there I was guilty of the same thing, keeping my best ideas on a Google Doc where no one can see them. So here we are 47 Quick Ideas to Market Your Small Business!

5. Six things to do with your blog once you’ve hit publish

First of all, why do you need to do anything? Because you want to get as many clicks as possible to your website. The more clicks you get, the more attention your website is getting and the more your website will be flagged by Google as being a website to notice about that topic, therefore your rankings are more likely to go up. Secondly, do you really need to blog? Is it that important? It’s such a great way to be visible, to get more clicks and to improve your SEO.

3.Create a Reel of your favourite images

It doesn’t always have to be on your website of course! You could make a Reel of your favourite images from the year and post on Instagram, brilliant for engagement and if you use a trending audio like one of the ones I’ve listed below, you have even better chance of getting more engagement on your Reel. This audio is brilliant to use As is this one And this one even has “Use template” so you can slot your images right in Try one out and tag me @maddy.shine I’d love to see it! 🙂

4. You could do a round up of your most popular resources like my most downloaded free guides

1. Does Google know I exist?

This was originally a popular blog post I wrote in 2019, but over the years I’ve turned into a landing page which still has 50% conversion (so happy it’s helpful to so many) You can download my free guide to setting up Google Search Console – one of the quickest ways to get seen on Google)

2. How to be more productive

When it comes to getting more clients, the possibilities seem endless, overwhelming and frankly you’d much prefer to simply be doing the client work not the actual ON the business stuff, so I’ve created this step by step guide on how you can be more productive working ON the business and get more clients. Download my free guide on how to do more with the time you DO have instead of stressing about the time you don’t complete with handy resources + tools to keep things practical.

5. Got a podcast? Do a roundup of your most listened to episodes

If you have a podcast or want to share your podcast recommendations with your community, you could write a blog about my 5 most listened to podcast episodes. In 2020, I launched the High Vis podcast, your biz bestie for visibility. In the first season I invited a few special guests on, but seasons 2 and 3 I was flying solo. In 2022, I intended to release more episodes of the podcast but it didn’t happen and I’m fine with that. People are still listening which is fabulous, so here are the most popular episodes (I know this because the site where I pay to host my podcasts – Libsyn – tells me the stats).

1. How to sell without feeling gross

How to sell without feeling gross

2. How to get your images seen on Google

How to get your images found on Google

3. Writing about yourself and having fun with it

Writing about yourself + actually having fun with it

4. Does having an ideal client really make a difference?

Does having an ideal client really make a difference?

5. What to say on my website to get found aka what are my keywords?

What do I say on my website aka what on earth are my keywords?

6. Do a round up of personal stories

Of course if you’re prone to sharing more personal fun stuff as well as work stuff then you could make the focus of your best of 2022 a round up of your personal goals, challenges or stories. You could break it down into highs, challenges met and surprises along the way.

• Did you hit a personal goal?

  • I reached 550 million views of the GIFs that I launched for fun in lockdown. It’s so much fun hearing from people when they spot me out in the wild. You can find all my GIFs by typing in “Maddy Shine” wherever you use GIFs.
  • I reached 10 years in business and celebrated with an epic giveaway on Instagram! I gave out books, luxury food hampers, and even took one magnificent new pal out for cocktails and singalong Dirty Dancing!

• Did you hit a milestone for projects / sales?

  • I hit a six figure turnover for the third year in a row but in all honesty, the VAT is doing my head in, and next year I’m looking to switch things up! 

• Did you release a new service or re-launch an older one? Did you feel proud of developing a project you were nervous about?

  • I launched my brand new six month program Momentum with Maddy which is all about personality-led marketing (NOT SEO!) You can sign up here to be the first to hear when Momentum is opening again in 2023.
  • I opened the doors to Blogging for Gold again, and I’m delighted to have helped over 100 amazing women in the course, with thousands more participating in the free challenges. Sign up to the waiting list to hear about when Blogging for Gold opens its doors in 2023 here.
  • This year The Visible Vibes Community celebrated its 2nd birthday. It’s certainly kept me busy always tweaking, upgrading and evolving to meet the needs of my wonderful members

• Did you do something out of the ordinary for you?

  • I had a rough start to the year with a mental health dip so I sought support through the NHS and had a brilliant therapist for a few months. I now sleep better and take better care of myself (more rest in between the fun stuff mainly).
  • I had a breast cancer scare when I found a lump in September and instead of ignoring it and hoping the problem would go away, I sought medical care, went for the scan, my first mammogram (unpleasant), a biopsy (oh the bruising) and got the all clear in November.
  • I joined an amateur drama group and I’ve acted in two plays. If someone had told me this would be the case this time last year I would have laughed. I cannot tell you how much good it has done for my mental health, my sense of community, my emotional wellbeing, helped me be a better team player…all the good things! I love it so much I’ve now joined the committee for the group.
  • I got into gardening! My Mum I fear has always been a little disappointed that I didn’t inherit her greenfingers but I started planting in the small triangle of garden out the back of my building and it’s so lovely! I’ve also massively increased the plants in my home – I could never keep anything alive before. Again, brilliant for my mental health. I see what the fuss is about now.
  • I went on a blind date in the Guardian – talk about getting visible! I was the most read article on the Guardian for 24 hours.
  • I adopted a rescue cat in April – Dexter is the fluffiest grumpiest-looking cat in the world but we are besties and he adores everyone who comes round to visit too.
  • I started volunteering for Clear Community Web – a brilliant local charity helping bridge the digital gap with the elderly and vulnerable people in my local community. It’s made me a lot more patient and compassionate with teaching people about tech.
  • I love being organised and I love helping others with this, so I started decluttering for friends with different needs – a house move between two cities (saying goodbye to unnecessary stuff), an exploding wardrobe situation for a fashion lover (taking over the spare room as well as not having suitable storage capacity), a hoarder of unfinished projects (and a stubborn unwillingness to part with any of them) and a friend who bought their first home after living out of a suitcase for months (categorising stuff in order to stop impulse purchasing). I’m still deciding whether to start it as a second business in 2023. Let’s see.
  • I turned 40 and took myself off to Mexico for 3 weeks with four brilliant besties. We had epic adventures and I highly recommend adding Mexico to your bucket list. It’s a beautiful place. Highlight for me was snorkelling with turtles on my actual birthday. It was so beautiful I cried. You can read more about what I learned here.

So there we have it. A few solid ideas for you to create your best of 2022 blog, but before we round this off properly….

Make sure you do….

• Choose ONE of these ideas from my list on how to create your best of 2022 – you don’t need to do them all!

Make sure you don’t…

• Don’t include images of clients that didn’t fit your target client. You will attract what you promote. If they were, let’s say, a little tricky, don’t include them in your Best of post, no matter how awesome the image is.
• Don’t talk yourself out of not doing one – it’s a really helpful exercise and it makes great content – you just need to repurpose what you already have.
• Don’t ignore your best employee i.e. your website! Your best employee represents your brand, promotes your values and works damn hard for you.
• Don’t have too many images – this will slow down your website a lot! No one wants to wait that long – be brutal with your culling (hence why I suggest top 10 for example)

Bonus Tip on how to create your best of 2022 blog post, what now? What’s the best way to share this on social media and get more eyes on your business?

Here are 8 awesome ideas for you:

1. Choose an image from 5 of the best things you shared and post for 5 days about it on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest.
2. You can paste the link to your Instagram bio along with a snippet of the blog post (like your opening paragraph) and direct people to the link in your bio
3. Do not be afraid of repeating that it is your Best Of wherever you’re promoting this content
4. Link to your Best of 2022 blog post in your Autoresponder/Out of office that I hope you’ve got on for the Christmas break.
5. Link to your Best of 2022 in your email signature
6. Email out to the clients and customers who are featured in it with a link to your Facebook and blog post for them to share it.
7. Email the suppliers and collaborators you have featured in your Best of the year.
8. Email your list to share the blog post with them

Whichever idea you choose from this mammoth list, make sure you just choose one. Start off with an intro paragraph like I did and then make sure you round off with a summary paragraph like I have below, including a call to action. Like I said at the start, you want to create great excuses to repurpose content you already have. You also want to have great reasons to link to other content ideally published on your website but if not then external links that are highly relevant to your brand (submitted weddings or shoots, collaborations, etc) And finally, remember that your blog is not always there for you to sell directly but to make people more AWARE, demonstrate how you can be useful to them. Show, don’t tell. Now that you’ve taken the time to review a challenging year in so many ways I hope you’ve taken a moment to celebrate all that you have achieved. In fact, this is one of the steps in my Annual Review training that we do in The Visible Vibes Community. If you’d like to dive deeper into this and take action along with a group fo supportive female business owners, then you can read all about and join The Visible Vibes Community here. Favourite