Automating Content Idea Generation: Using N8N to Track Industry Trends

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Automating Content Idea Generation: Using N8N to Track Industry Trends

Staying on top of industry trends is crucial for content creators, but manually monitoring multiple sources can be time-consuming. Automation offers a solution to this challenge by continuously tracking trending topics and generating content ideas with minimal human intervention.

Creating an Automated Trend Monitoring System

Using N8N, a powerful workflow automation platform, it’s possible to build a system that monitors industry trends and automatically generates content ideas. This automation performs several key functions:

  • Monitors Google Trends for popular search queries in your niche
  • Identifies the most relevant trending topics
  • Searches Google News for articles related to these trends
  • Scrapes and processes content from news articles
  • Uses AI to generate specific content ideas with bullet points

Setting Up the Workflow

The workflow begins with a trigger – which can be manual or scheduled – and follows these steps:

Step 1: Trend Discovery

The automation connects to Google Trends via SERP API to identify trending topics related to a specified keyword. This requires:

  • Setting up an account with SERP API (which offers free credits)
  • Configuring an HTTP request node in N8N
  • Specifying the timeframe for trend analysis (last week, month, or year)

Step 2: Filtering Relevant Trends

Once trending topics are identified, an AI component filters them to select the most relevant ones for your specific niche:

  • A basic LLM chain using an AI model like GPT-4 Mini reviews the trends
  • The AI selects topics that match specified criteria while filtering out irrelevant ones
  • Data is properly formatted using string manipulation for optimal AI processing

Step 3: News Collection

The system then searches Google News for recent articles about the selected trending topic:

  • Another SERP API request targets Google News results
  • Results can be filtered by language, region, and recency
  • A code node extracts and processes the top three news results

Step 4: Content Scraping

For each news article found, the workflow:

  • Uses a loop function to process each article individually
  • Connects to Data for SEO (another service offering free credits) to scrape article content
  • Cleans and restructures the scraped content into a readable format

Step 5: Content Idea Generation

Finally, the system uses AI to analyze all collected information and generate content ideas:

  • The scraped content from all articles is aggregated
  • An AI model reviews the combined information
  • Based on the analysis, it produces structured content ideas with bullet points for each topic

Practical Applications

This automation is particularly valuable for niches with frequent updates and developments, such as:

  • Technology and AI
  • Marketing and digital media
  • Finance and business
  • Health and wellness

By scheduling this workflow to run daily or weekly, content creators can receive a steady stream of trend-based content ideas delivered directly to their inbox without manual research.

Extending the System

While the basic workflow is powerful on its own, it can be enhanced by:

  • Connecting to databases like Airtable or Google Sheets to store results
  • Adding email notification features
  • Customizing the AI prompts for specific content formats
  • Incorporating additional data sources beyond Google News

This automated approach to content ideation ensures creators never miss important trends in their industry while saving countless hours of manual research.

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