Slug: n8n-google-places-search-workflow
Focus Keyphrase: n8n Google Places API
Hey everyone 👋
If you’ve ever needed to find local businesses automatically — say, “cafes in New York” or “law firms in London” — and save all that data neatly into Google Sheets, then this post is going to be your new favorite.
I recently built an n8n workflow that does exactly that:
👉 takes a location and an industry,
👉 queries the Google Places API,
👉 extracts the business info (like name, address, phone, rating, etc.), and
👉 saves everything automatically into a Google Sheet.
No manual copy-paste, no spreadsheets mess — just pure automation.
Let’s break it down step by step 👇
💡 What This Workflow Does
Here’s what happens behind the scenes when you trigger it:
- You fill out a simple form (Location + Industry).
- The form sends data to n8n.
- n8n makes a POST request to Google Places API with your query.
- It extracts details like name, address, rating, phone, website, etc.
- It loops through each result.
- And finally, it appends or updates the data into a Google Sheet.
That’s it — within seconds, you’ve got a structured business list ready to go.
🧩 The n8n Workflow Overview
Here’s what the workflow looks like inside n8n:
Nodes used:
- 📝 Form Trigger → To collect user input (Location + Industry)
- 🌍 HTTP Request (Google Places API) → To search for businesses
- 🔁 Split in Batches / Loop → To handle multiple results
- ⚙️ Function Node → To extract and format the data
- 📄 Google Sheets Node → To save it neatly into your spreadsheet
Let’s walk through each one briefly.
🧭 1. Form Trigger — The Starting Point
I used n8n’s Form Trigger node to collect two fields:
- Location
- Industry
So when someone enters something like “Restaurants” in “New York”, it passes that data to the next node.
🌐 2. Google Places API Request
This node sends a POST request to the Google Places API endpoint:
https://places.googleapis.com/v1/places:searchText
It includes two important headers:
X-Goog-Api-Key: YOUR_API_KEY
X-Goog-FieldMask: places.id,places.displayName,places.formattedAddress,places.internationalPhoneNumber,places.rating,places.websiteUri
And the body:
{
"textQuery": "{{ $json.Industry }} in {{ $json.Location }}"
}
So if someone entered “Cafes” and “Los Angeles”, it searches Cafes in Los Angeles.
✅ Tip: Make sure you have the Google Places API enabled in your Google Cloud console and a valid API key.
🔄 3. Split In Batches (Looping Through Results)
Once the API returns multiple businesses, n8n loops through each one so that we can process them individually.
This ensures the workflow doesn’t choke on large datasets — it handles one at a time gracefully.
🧮 4. Extract Business Data (Function Node)
Here’s where the magic happens 👇
This small JavaScript snippet extracts and formats the API response:
const places = items[0].json.places || [];
return places.map(place => ({
json: {
id: place.id || null,
name: place.displayName?.text || null,
address: place.formattedAddress || null,
phone: place.internationalPhoneNumber || null,
website: place.websiteUri || null,
rating: place.rating || null
}
}));
Basically, it picks the key details we care about — ID, name, address, phone, website, and rating — and prepares them to be sent to Google Sheets.
📊 5. Save to Google Sheets
Finally, the Google Sheets node appends or updates each business in your sheet.
Here’s how the column mapping looks:
| Sheet Column | n8n Field |
|---|---|
| ID | {{$json.id}} |
| Name | {{$json.name}} |
| Address | {{$json.address}} |
| Phone | {{$json.phone}} |
| Website | {{$json.website}} |
| Rating | {{$json.rating}} |
You can use “Append or Update” so it won’t duplicate existing entries.
This workflow automatically syncs data — it’s like your own mini CRM for leads, businesses, or prospect research.
{
"nodes": [
{
"parameters": {
"method": "POST",
"url": "https://places.googleapis.com/v1/places:searchText",
"sendHeaders": true,
"headerParameters": {
"parameters": [
{
"name": "X-Goog-Api-Key",
"value": "<API_KEY>"
},
{
"name": "X-Goog-FieldMask",
"value": "places.id,places.displayName,places.formattedAddress,places.internationalPhoneNumber,places.rating,places.websiteUri"
}
]
},
"sendBody": true,
"bodyParameters": {
"parameters": [
{
"name": "textQuery",
"value": "={{ $json.Industry }} in {{ $json.Location }}"
}
]
},
"options": {}
},
"id": "3c9a9767-e78a-49f4-8151-8429e99a2824",
"name": "Google Places Search",
"type": "n8n-nodes-base.httpRequest",
"typeVersion": 3,
"position": [
-688,
64
]
},
{
"parameters": {
"functionCode": "// Extract business data from Google Places API response (new format)\nconst places = items[0].json.places || [];\n\nreturn places.map(place => ({\n json: {\n id: place.id || null,\n name: place.displayName?.text || null,\n address: place.formattedAddress || null,\n phone: place.internationalPhoneNumber || null,\n website: place.websiteUri || null,\n rating: place.rating || null\n },\n Language: place.languageCode || null\n}));\n"
},
"id": "ca63a61f-8fa5-484f-aa87-e9c2efd3d5b8",
"name": "Extract Business Data",
"type": "n8n-nodes-base.function",
"typeVersion": 1,
"position": [
-48,
48
]
},
{
"parameters": {
"batchSize": 1,
"options": {}
},
"id": "26bcf278-e991-4022-8c2b-f78ca7824381",
"name": "Split In Batches",
"type": "n8n-nodes-base.splitInBatches",
"typeVersion": 1,
"position": [
-240,
48
]
},
{
"parameters": {
"operation": "appendOrUpdate",
"documentId": {
"__rl": true,
"value": "<Goole_Sheet_ID_URL>",
"mode": "url"
},
"sheetName": {
"__rl": true,
"value": "gid=0",
"mode": "list",
"cachedResultName": "Sheet1",
"cachedResultUrl": "<Goole_Sheet_ID_URL>"
},
"columns": {
"mappingMode": "defineBelow",
"value": {
"ID": "={{ $json.id }}",
"name": "={{ $json.name }}",
"address": "={{ $json.address }}",
"phone": "={{ $json.phone }}",
"website": "={{ $json.website }}",
"Rating": "={{ $json.rating }}"
},
"matchingColumns": [
"ID"
],
"schema": [
{
"id": "ID",
"displayName": "ID",
"required": false,
"defaultMatch": false,
"display": true,
"type": "string",
"canBeUsedToMatch": true,
"removed": false
},
{
"id": "name",
"displayName": "name",
"required": false,
"defaultMatch": false,
"display": true,
"type": "string",
"canBeUsedToMatch": true
},
{
"id": "address",
"displayName": "address",
"required": false,
"defaultMatch": false,
"display": true,
"type": "string",
"canBeUsedToMatch": true
},
{
"id": "phone",
"displayName": "phone",
"required": false,
"defaultMatch": false,
"display": true,
"type": "string",
"canBeUsedToMatch": true
},
{
"id": "website",
"displayName": "website",
"required": false,
"defaultMatch": false,
"display": true,
"type": "string",
"canBeUsedToMatch": true
},
{
"id": "Rating",
"displayName": "Rating",
"required": false,
"defaultMatch": false,
"display": true,
"type": "string",
"canBeUsedToMatch": true
}
],
"attemptToConvertTypes": false,
"convertFieldsToString": false
},
"options": {}
},
"id": "85d4dce5-a46c-4913-8c79-ed683c246ea6",
"name": "Google Sheets (Save Data)",
"type": "n8n-nodes-base.googleSheets",
"typeVersion": 4,
"position": [
160,
48
],
"credentials": {
"googleSheetsOAuth2Api": {
"id": "kgn6beRnGDwnBhfk",
"name": "Google Sheets account"
}
}
},
{
"parameters": {
"options": {}
},
"type": "n8n-nodes-base.splitInBatches",
"typeVersion": 3,
"position": [
-448,
64
],
"id": "a4d4a1b5-8377-42b0-b401-e8662ef662bb",
"name": "Loop Over Items"
},
{
"parameters": {},
"type": "n8n-nodes-base.noOp",
"name": "Replace Me",
"typeVersion": 1,
"position": [
-320,
224
],
"id": "420e2fe4-368a-4759-9830-c48ffa567b66"
},
{
"parameters": {
"formTitle": "Search",
"formFields": {
"values": [
{
"fieldLabel": "Location"
},
{
"fieldLabel": "Industry"
}
]
},
"options": {}
},
"type": "n8n-nodes-base.formTrigger",
"typeVersion": 2.3,
"position": [
-896,
64
],
"id": "e1c0e351-5d12-4d6b-8a35-d81f8e3369bd",
"name": "On form submission",
"webhookId": "fbb1894c-9fd4-4cf3-a1d4-f2da62bf44ba"
}
],
"connections": {
"Google Places Search": {
"main": [
[
{
"node": "Loop Over Items",
"type": "main",
"index": 0
}
]
]
},
"Extract Business Data": {
"main": [
[
{
"node": "Google Sheets (Save Data)",
"type": "main",
"index": 0
}
]
]
},
"Split In Batches": {
"main": [
[
{
"node": "Extract Business Data",
"type": "main",
"index": 0
}
]
]
},
"Loop Over Items": {
"main": [
[
{
"node": "Split In Batches",
"type": "main",
"index": 0
}
],
[
{
"node": "Replace Me",
"type": "main",
"index": 0
}
]
]
},
"Replace Me": {
"main": [
[
{
"node": "Loop Over Items",
"type": "main",
"index": 0
}
]
]
},
"On form submission": {
"main": [
[
{
"node": "Google Places Search",
"type": "main",
"index": 0
}
]
]
}
},
"pinData": {},
"meta": {
"instanceId": "9f9ed819420789edfdfcb51a110cde7a611f70c85f4eb1924df805fc9bc5ff04"
}
}
🧠 Real Use Cases
Here are a few cool ways you could use this:
- 📍 Build a local business directory
- 🏢 Generate leads for your marketing or sales team
- 🍕 Create “Top X in City” lists for your website
- 🧰 Enrich datasets with public business info
- 🧾 Combine with AI (like OpenAI node) to summarize or categorize the results
⚙️ Things to Keep in Mind
- You’ll need a Google Cloud API key with Places API enabled.
- Add rate limits if you plan to do large queries.
- Secure your webhook if the form trigger is public.
- You can easily host this on your self-hosted n8n or n8n Cloud — both work great.
🚀 Final Thoughts
This little workflow shows how powerful n8n + Google APIs can be together.
With just a few nodes, you can go from user input → API → formatted data → Google Sheet — no coding required (well, except a small function node 😄).
It’s fast, flexible, and you own the entire process.
Now I’m curious…
👉 Have you built something similar in n8n?
👉 Do you prefer using n8n for data workflows, or do you still rely on Make.com or Zapier?
Drop your thoughts in the comments below — I’d love to feature some of your creative use cases on DevToolHub!
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