How to Automate Google Trends to Google Sheets With n8n (2026 Guide)

Manually checking Google Trends and copying keywords into a spreadsheet is slow, repetitive work — exactly the kind of task automation was made for. With n8n, you can build a workflow that pulls trending keywords on a schedule, scrapes the top related articles into clean text, and appends everything to a Google Sheet automatically. This guide rebuilds the popular “Google Trends to Google Sheets” workflow step by step, so you end up with a hands-free content-research engine.

What this workflow does

The automation follows a simple chain: on a schedule, it fetches trending searches from Google Trends, cleans and filters them, scrapes the linked articles for context using Jina AI, runs a data-quality check, and saves the structured results to Google Sheets. The payoff: every few hours your sheet quietly fills with fresh trending topics and summaries — a ready-made editorial and SEO research feed without you lifting a finger. It’s one of the most useful beginner-to-intermediate n8n builds because every node has a clear, practical job.

What you’ll need

Notably, you can run this entirely free: self-hosted n8n, the keyless Trends RSS feed, Jina’s free Reader tier, and Google Sheets. Costs only appear if you add a paid AI summarizer or a premium trends API later.

Build it, step by step

https://trends.google.com/trending/rss?geo=US

# Change geo= to your country code: GB, IN, DE, etc.
# Use this as the URL in an RSS Read node (or HTTP Request node).

// Keep only items that have at least one related article link,
// and trim to the fields you care about.
return items
  .filter(i => i.json.link || (i.json.news_item && i.json.news_item.length))
  .map(i => ({
    json: {
      keyword: i.json.title,
      traffic: i.json.approx_traffic || "",
      article_url: i.json.link || i.json.news_item?.[0]?.news_item_url
    }
  }));

Method: GET
URL:    https://r.jina.ai/{{ $json.article_url }}

# Optional: add a header for higher rate limits
# Authorization: Bearer YOUR_JINA_API_KEY
#
# Jina returns clean, readable text (Markdown) instead of raw HTML.
# Map the response into a "summary" or "content" field for the sheet.

The workflow at a glance

Ways to extend it

Once the core pipeline works, it becomes a foundation you can build on:

• Add an AI summary. Pass the Jina text through an LLM node to generate a one-line takeaway or content angle per keyword.
• Filter by your niche. Add a keyword filter so only trends relevant to your site get saved.
• Auto-draft content. Chain the output into a blog-draft or social-post workflow. (Trending keywords make great article topics.)
• Switch the source. For richer query-level data, swap the RSS node for a SerpAPI or Bright Data trends node.
• Send alerts. Add a Slack or email node to ping you when a high-traffic trend appears.

Troubleshooting

• No data from RSS? Check your geo= country code and that the RSS URL is reachable; trends vary by region and availability.
• Jina returns errors or rate limits? Add a free Jina API key as an HTTP header, and space out requests if you scrape many articles.
• Empty rows in the sheet? Your IF/data-check node isn’t filtering correctly — confirm it only passes items with a valid result.
• Google Sheets node fails? Re-check the OAuth credential and that the column names in your Set node exactly match the sheet headers.
• Workflow runs but nothing appends? Make sure the Google Sheets node is set to Append and points to the correct sheet tab.

Frequently asked questions