SERP Analysis Template — Serper + Firecrawl

Automate high-quality SERP analysis with a production-ready n8n workflow template that connects Serper.dev for live search results, Firecrawl for rapid content extraction, OpenAI for structured analysis, and Google Sheets for reporting. Built for SEO leaders, content strategists, and growth teams, this workflow consolidates organic results, FAQs, related searches, and page content into a single automated pipeline, then outputs structured insights directly into your spreadsheet.

Overview: Automated SERP Intelligence for SEO and Growth Teams

Traditional SERP research relies on manual queries, copy-paste operations, and inconsistent note taking. This template replaces that fragmented process with a repeatable n8n workflow that orchestrates multiple APIs in a single run. It is optimized for:

• Technical SEOs performing competitive analysis and content gap assessments
• Content and editorial teams building outlines, FAQs, and keyword clusters
• Growth teams tracking shifts in top results and emerging keyword opportunities
• Product and marketing teams assembling concise competitor briefs

What the SERP Analysis Workflow Delivers

Once configured, each execution of the workflow can:

• Retrieve mobile and desktop SERPs for a given keyword and country
• Deduplicate and clean results, excluding unwanted domains such as YouTube or aggregators
• Extract FAQs and related searches to surface user intent and topic variations
• Crawl top ranking URLs and return page content in markdown format
• Use OpenAI to summarize pages, suggest focus keywords, and generate n-gram analysis
• Write all structured outputs to Google Sheets for collaboration and reporting

The result is a consistent, repeatable SERP research process that scales with your keyword list and reduces manual effort.

Workflow Architecture and Key Components

The template is organized into distinct logical stages that align with a typical SERP research process. Below is a breakdown of the main sections and the n8n nodes and integrations involved.

1. Input & SERP Retrieval (Serper.dev)

The workflow begins with a form-based trigger. This entry point allows you to specify:

• Target keyword or keyphrase
• Country code (for example, us, de) to localize results

Once triggered, the workflow calls Serper.dev twice, once for mobile results and once for desktop results. These HTTP requests return rich SERP data, including:

• Organic listings with titles, URLs, and snippets
• People Also Ask questions
• Related searches

Subsequent nodes normalize and clean this data, removing duplicates and filtering out domains you do not want to analyze, such as video platforms or specific aggregators. At this stage, the workflow isolates the organic results that will later be crawled and analyzed.

2. Intent Signals: FAQs & Related Searches to Google Sheets

To support content ideation and topic modeling, the workflow extracts two key SERP features from Serper.dev responses:

• People Also Ask / FAQs – common user questions that indicate intent and pain points
• Related searches – alternative queries and semantic variations around the core keyword

These items are:

• Split into separate datasets
• Deduplicated to remove repeated entries
• Appended into two dedicated sheets within the same Google Spreadsheet:
  • FAQs
  • Related Searches

This structure gives your SEO and content teams an immediate view of user questions and adjacent topics, ideal for building FAQ sections, supporting articles, and broader content clusters.

3. SERP Result Selection & Crawling (Firecrawl)

After cleaning the SERP data, the workflow selects the top results to analyze in depth. The number of URLs is configurable, so you can start with a small subset and scale later. Key steps include:

• Combining mobile and desktop results into a single list
• Deduplicating URLs across devices
• Applying additional filters to exclude unwanted sources or internal domains

The selected URLs are then passed in batches to Firecrawl. Firecrawl is responsible for:

• Crawling each URL
• Extracting the visible page content
• Returning the content in markdown format along with relevant metadata

This stage transforms raw SERP links into structured page content that can be fed into OpenAI for analysis.

4. Content Analysis & Keyword Intelligence (OpenAI)

Once Firecrawl returns the page content, the workflow invokes OpenAI with a prompt tailored for SEO analysis. For each page, OpenAI is instructed to act as an SEO specialist and produce:

• A concise summary of the page
• A suggested primary focus keyword
• Relevant long tail keyword ideas
• N-gram analysis that includes:
  • Unigrams
  • Bigrams
  • Trigrams

This structured output helps you quickly understand how competitors position their content, which terms they emphasize, and where there may be gaps or opportunities.

5. Output & Reporting (Google Sheets)

All processed data is written into a central Google Spreadsheet. The template expects three sheets named exactly as follows:

• SERP Analysis
• FAQs
• Related Searches

The main SERP Analysis sheet is populated with rows that typically include:

• Position, title, URL, and snippet from the SERP
• Short OpenAI summary of the page
• Suggested focus keyword and related long tail keywords
• Unigram, bigram, and trigram data for quick keyword frequency review

The two additional sheets store the FAQ and related search data, giving you a complete view of query-level and page-level insights in one place.

Quick Setup Guide

To get this template running in your n8n environment, follow these steps:

1. Create a Google Spreadsheet with three sheets named:
   • SERP Analysis
   • FAQs
   • Related Searches

   Ensure that the column headers match those expected by the template (you can reference the sample workbook bundled with the template).

2. In n8n, configure credentials for:
   • Serper.dev
   • Firecrawl
   • OpenAI
   • Google Sheets
3. Import the workflow template into your n8n instance and map your credentials to the corresponding nodes.
4. Update the Google Sheets node configuration so that the document IDs point to your new spreadsheet.
5. Trigger the workflow using the form node or execute it manually for an initial test. Review the populated sheets to validate that data is flowing as expected.

Operational Best Practices

To ensure reliable execution and high quality outputs, consider the following recommendations:

• Start small – Configure the workflow to analyze the top 3 to 5 URLs initially. Once you are satisfied with the results, increase the limit.
• Use appropriate country codes – Always specify the correct country code (for example, us, de) to obtain relevant local SERPs.
• Refine filters – Adjust the remove or limit nodes to exclude domains that are not useful for your analysis, such as large aggregators, forums, or internal documentation sites.
• Respect rate limits – Serper.dev and Firecrawl impose rate limits. If you experience errors or throttling, introduce or increase wait times between requests.
• Harden security – Store API keys as environment variables or n8n credentials with minimal permissions. Avoid embedding secrets directly in nodes.

Troubleshooting & Optimization Tips

If the workflow returns incomplete data or errors, use the following checks:

• Firecrawl issues – Confirm that your Firecrawl API key is valid and that your subscription supports batch scraping. Inspect any error messages returned by the Firecrawl nodes.
• Serper.dev responses – Inspect the raw JSON in the Serper.dev HTTP Request nodes within n8n to ensure the API is responding correctly and that the expected fields are present.
• Google Sheets permissions – Verify that the Google account connected to the Google Sheets node has edit access to the target spreadsheet and can append rows.
• OpenAI output quality – If keyword suggestions or summaries are not useful, refine the system prompt to be more specific or adjust the model’s temperature for either more deterministic or more creative results.

Primary Use Cases

This template is particularly valuable in the following scenarios:

• SEO competitive audits – Map the SERP landscape, identify content gaps, and benchmark competitor coverage.
• Content planning and outline creation – Build article structures and FAQ sections directly from real user queries and top ranking pages.
• Growth and performance monitoring – Track how top results evolve over time and surface new keyword or topic opportunities.
• Product and marketing research – Generate concise summaries of competitor pages to support positioning documents and writer briefs.

Example Output Snapshot

After running the workflow for a single keyword, your Google Spreadsheet will typically contain:

• In SERP Analysis:
  • Rank position, title, URL, and SERP snippet
  • OpenAI generated summary of each page
  • Suggested primary focus keyword and related long tail keywords
  • Unigram, bigram, and trigram data for quick keyword frequency and phrase analysis
• In FAQs:
  • People Also Ask style questions for the analyzed keyword
• In Related Searches:
  • Related queries and variations to expand your topic coverage

Advanced Customizations

The template is intentionally flexible and can be adapted to your specific workflows and tech stack. Common extensions include:

• Changing the OpenAI model or refining prompts to reflect your brand voice, preferred summary format, or more detailed outlines.
• Adding sentiment or intent classification nodes to categorize results by informational, commercial, transactional, or navigational intent.
• Integrating Slack or email notifications that send a daily or weekly summary of new keyword opportunities or notable SERP changes.
• Extending the Firecrawl step to extract structured data, such as schema.org markup, to identify FAQ schemas, how-to rich snippets, or other SERP feature opportunities.

Security & Compliance Considerations

When deploying this workflow in production environments, keep the following in mind:

• Respect the terms of service for Serper.dev, Firecrawl, OpenAI, and Google APIs.
• Adhere to robots.txt directives when scraping content and avoid excessive request rates.
• Treat scraped content as input for analysis and ideation. Do not republish competitor content verbatim. Use summaries and insights to inform original content creation.

Get Started with the SERP Analysis Template

This n8n template provides a robust starting point for automating SERP research and transforming raw search results into actionable SEO and content insights. Import the workflow into your n8n instance, connect your Serper.dev, Firecrawl, OpenAI, and Google Sheets credentials, and run a test keyword to validate the setup.

Next step: Import the template now and execute your first SERP analysis. For guided implementation, custom prompts, or advanced integrations, collaborate with the workflow developer or your preferred automation partner.

If you need enhancements such as multi country sweeps, deeper intent classification, or automated content brief generation into Google Docs, reach out with your requirements. The workflow can be extended to align with your specific research and reporting processes.