So, You’re Interested in Ranking Well for Father’s Day (But Don’t Know Where to Start)
○ Published on 30th June 2023
○ Authors: Sophie Humphrey, Michael Chidzey & Kayleigh Stubbs. Designer: Dan Mynard
○ Research Based
We write for people trying to improve their digital marketing – to find what’s right for them and their organisation, is good for their customers, and *actually* works. This post is about SEO and will help you determine whether investing effort in future Father’s Days will be worthwhile and how to best prepare and optimise for it.
You’re not alone if you wish your sales figures were a little better (and think about everything you could do if you had a little extra). Popular holidays, like Father’s Day, offer relevant businesses the opportunity to increase their organic traffic and enjoy a significant boost in sales.
Read on to learn from successful companies that excelled during the last Father’s Day. This post can be your SEO checklist to consider while designing your Father’s Day section to earn even more traffic from Google.
Any web pages we’ve referenced earned their place in the top three organic search results on Google for commercial non-branded Father’s Day queries throughout June 2023 in London, New York, and Los Angeles, as well as in September 2022 in Sydney. These web pages received significant organic traffic leading up to Father’s Day.
These web pages are absolute gold mines of knowledge, and we’ve done the legwork to independently review them, providing you with practical and actionable recommendations.
Note: When Google assesses a website and its rankings, it evaluates a specific web page and the overall quality of the website. This post is about your Father’s Day section only. We assume you have an established business with a website that search engines can technically access, crawl, and understand.
Plan early
Push your Father’s Day URL live – and make it permanent
The majority of commercial web pages that rank well use the same URL again and again. John Lewis first used their Father’s Day URL in 2014. Don’t be put off by that. Most web pages that rank well for Father’s Day have only been live for the last few years. So if you already have a Father’s Day URL, don’t unpublish it. If you don’t have one, make one.
The clearer, the better. A simple ‘/fathers-day/’ will make it clear to users and search engines what the intent behind the page is.
For popular sales periods like January Sales or Black Friday, many businesses that rank well also use the same URL repeatedly. When out of season, they make the page less prominent. Another trick when you have nothing on the page is to add an email subscribe option to be notified when the sale starts or new products are added.
What if I have several Father’s Day landing pages?
Most websites that rank well over Father’s Day have one central pillar page optimised for the core keywords. This page can link to other relevant content and product pages, but typically for long-tail or niche keywords in this topic. By ensuring you don’t have pages fighting for the same keyword, you avoid confusing search engines, diluting efforts, and keyword cannibalisation.
Fully satisfy search queries
Create categories to cover every user intent
Most commercial pages that rank well over Father’s Day serve categories and content to satisfy search queries and direct users to where they want to go. Here is some inspiration based on the most popular web pages:
By types of Dads and senders:
By popularity and sub-categories:
By budget:
By interests and hobbies:
By product category:
Last-minute ideas:
Provide unique products and ideas
Another way to gain top rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs) is to offer something a little different. We like to call it providing a unique angle on the same topic. For example, where most others offer alcohol, chocolates, socks, BBQs, and cards, everything on this list by the Wirecutter was unique, with items like exceptional anchovies, a masterclass in cooking by Gordon Ramsay, and a wildlife watcher camera.
Provide the widest range of options
One way to fully satisfy a search term is by providing the most extensive range of products, ideas, or services. Travel websites often use this technique on their destination pages, competing to provide the most accommodation options and things to do in that place.
Most commercial pages that rank well over Father’s Day include a wide range of sub-categories. Not On The High Street has categories for various types of Dads, different product types, hobbies, cards, and gifts.
Web pages featuring products only often serve a vast range. Thortful shows almost 7000 different Father’s Day cards with filters – it would be almost impossible not to find a card. Some commercial pages offer a mixture of sub-categories and products, like Uncommon Goods – still with 660 product ideas for Dad.
Editorial pages that rank well often have at least 50+ ideas, like these 60 on Good Housekeeping or these 64 on The Strategist — not your usual top 10 lists.
Show related content
Enchance the page and fully cover search queries with related blog posts, videos and guides on the page.
Optimise on-page elements
By spending time on the on-page technical elements of a page, such as titles, headings, and the URL, you can indicate to search engines what the page should rank for.
Utilise page titles (h1s) and subheadings (h2s, h3, h4s…)
Web pages that rank well over Father’s Day use keywords in their headings, and most use keywords in subheadings. This helps search engines understand more about what’s important on a page.
John Lewis uses a discreet but specific h1, “Father’s Day”, with a larger, more engaging subheading, “Make His Day”. At first glance, it would appear that the subheading is the main page title, but obviously, there are very few searches for “Make His Day” vs “Father’s Day”.
This approach is quite common practice across competitive industries. For example, Compare The Market’s car insurance page has the discreet h1 “car insurance” and the more compelling h2 “Hit The Road, Not Your Wallet”. NRMA’s car insurance h1 is the same.
Good Housekeeping includes popular search queries as subheadings throughout the article, such as “Funny Gift For Dads”, “Unique Gift for Dad”, “Gift for Dad who has Everything”, “Personalized Gift for Dad”, “Best Last-Minute Gift”, and “Popular Gift for Dad on Amazon”.
Publish clear title tags
Title tags have two jobs: 1) to capture relevant users’ attention and earn their clicks and 2) to help search engines understand what a page is about and meant to rank for. Here are some examples from the web pages that ranked well this year:
Father’s Day Gifts YEAR | BRAND
Father’s Day Gifts & Present Ideas YEAR UK | BRAND
60 Best Gifts for Dad in YEAR
75 Best gifts for dads for YEAR that are definitely on his list | BRAND
The 42 Best Gifts for Dad YEAR | BRAND
53 Best Gifts for Dad in YEAR: Infallible Gift Ideas for Dads (and Dad-Types) | BRAND
Father’s Day Cards | BRAND
Order Father’s Day Cards Online From 99p | BRAND
Father’s Day Cards YEAR | BRAND
Father’s Day Cards – The perfect gift for dad | BRAND
Father’s Day Gift & Ideas | 18 June YEAR | BRAND
Father’s day Clothing Gifts – BRAND
They all include primary keywords, with the majority including the year and the number of options.
Meta descriptions won’t directly impact SEO but could improve clickthrough rates and indirectly impact your rankings. More relevant clickthroughs, and consequent engagement on the page, can lead to a boost in rankings.
Add “Father’s Day” to your URL
Your page URL is another way to help search engines understand what a page is about. We always prefer short and sweet, but at the same time, make it super obvious. Here are examples from the web pages that ranked well this year:
brand.com/gifts/fathers-day/c6000120030
brand.com/fathers-day
brand.com/holidays/gift-ideas/g27116208/best-gifts-for-dads/
brand.com/lifestyle/gallery/gifts-for-dads
brand.com/sub-brand/gifts/gifts-for-dad/
brand.com/gallery/best-gifts-for-dad
brand.com/uk/personalised-cards/fathers-day/
brand.com/fathers-day/fathers-day-cards/
brand.com/collections/fathers-day-greeting-cards
brand.com/events/fathers-day-gifts/
brand.com/shop/fathers-day-gift-guide/fashion
Bring content to life with imagery
Images are an excellent supplement for readers looking for gift ideas as they support the buyer’s journey and help them make purchasing decisions. They can also help with rankings. Most of the web pages that ranked well over Father’s Day used keywords or relevant text in image titles, alt tags and image file names. This works much the same way as a page title or heading but on a much lower scale.
Don’t underestimate the power of Google Image Search. Over 10 per cent of people use Google Image Search daily; that’s over 1 billion daily searches and 11.5k per second. Having relevant images weaved into your content can help guide people to your content and improve rankings on the main SERPs, determined by clickthrough rates and onsite engagement.
What if I only have one product or service?
All web pages that regularly appear in the top results offer a range of products and services. This strategy makes sense, particularly for terms like “Gift Ideas for Dad”, where the user is looking for multiple ideas. It wouldn’t make sense for Google to serve one single product page as the top result.
If this sounds like you, don’t worry. We just need to change your strategy. Instead of building and optimising a page for Father’s Day, put that time into identifying articles and listicles that have covered Father’s Day in the past, like Hello Magazine, Metro, Canary Wharf, and The Sun. You could also explore pieces that rank well, like The Strategist and Good Housekeeping. Next, contact the author or publication to find out what you need to do to get on the list when it’s updated. Monitor search results for popular relevant terms to see if any new web pages appear that you can pitch your product or service to as well
Serve content (actual text) on the page
Add relevant copy to the page
Most web pages that rank well over Father’s Day have copy on the page, which includes relevant terms and topics, the date, and advice on finding the perfect gift.
When building slick landing pages, it’s tempting not to include paragraphs of text, but after reviewing the thousands of top-performing websites for highly commercial terms, we know the pages that tend to rank well have text. In the case of Father’s Day, introduction, category page descriptions and text at the bottom of the page (some hidden behind show more buttons).
Answer frequently asked questions
Including an FAQ section at the end of your page is an easy way to provide relevant text to the page without filling it or making it overly long. You can present them in collapsable accordions if you’re worried about cluttering or bulky pages. Here are some (of the better) examples that we’ve seen:
What are the best gifts for Dad?
What to get for a father who has everything?
When is Father’s Day?
What are some creative ways to personalise my gift?
Add trust signals
Incorporate trust signals on your Father’s Day page to build credibility and, of course, trust. Include author bios and dates (particularly for editorial content) to establish accountability. Provide ratings and reviews for your products to showcase their popularity and user satisfaction. You could also display relevant coverage and logos to highlight your brand’s reputation.
Products with ratings and reviews:
Add recent coverage:
Include author/product manager and when the page was last updated:
Consider your linking strategy
Internal and external links to high-authority and relevant content are always a good idea when publishing online content. However, for seasonal pages like this, content is ever-changing, and if businesses don’t have all of the valuable information we’re sharing with you in this guide, URLs may be pulled offline, or you could be directing your readers to blank pages with no points of engagement.
The top pages in our review had at most ten external links pointing to their pages. Although an important ranking signal, they don’t play the most critical role on this list.
Be accessible and enticing
A final consideration for your Father’s Day landing page is your use of meta descriptions and image alt text. Neither are direct ranking factors for SEO, but both affect it indirectly.
Meta descriptions are the snippets of text found below your page titles on SERPs. They are for the user only, not search engines, so there’s no need to worry about getting keywords in here – although you may find your primary keyword naturally fits into it. Keep it enticing to make users want to clickthrough and read more. The higher your clickthrough rate from SERPs for a search query, the more chance you have of affecting rankings with meta descriptions. That is dependent on the users who clickthrough actually engaging with the site, though, so if you have a high clickthrough rate and a high bounce rate, it won’t do much for you. That’s why everything else in this guide is essential. SEO is a holistic process.
Image alt text is primarily for visually impaired users, but it is also how search engines read the contents of an image. This should be used to describe what you see in an image and not another opportunity to put keywords. ‘Best Father’s Day Gifts’ does not tell search engines or users what an image is, but ‘football tickets next to a Father’s Day card and some beer on a table’ does. Accessibility is essential and could form a large part of your audience – don’t exclude them. But also, back to Google Image Search, if Google knows what it is, it’s more likely to rank.
The bottom line
Although it takes time and effort, ranking for popular holidays like Father’s Day is possible. It’s about creating the best possible result for relevant search queries and making it obvious what you are trying to rank for to search engines. But also ensuring the page is created with your user in mind. The more engagement you have, the more this will signal to search engines that your page is relevant for the keywords used.
When planning your landing page, use this post as a checklist and the web pages mentioned as inspiration to boost traffic leading up to the next Father’s Day. You can revisit this guide to refresh your page each year and make the relevant updates.
