Google Sheets to WordPress Workflow: How to Auto-Publish Posts, Upload Images and Create Tags

Introduction: Why automating Google Sheets to WordPress matters for Australian businesses

If your team still copies and pastes content from spreadsheets into WordPress, you are wasting valuable time and introducing avoidable errors. This guide walks through a practical Google Sheets to WordPress workflow that automates post creation, handles featured images and tags, and controls post status (publish or draft) directly from the sheet. The process demonstrated in the video uses a node-based automation approach and a shared Google Sheets template so you can replicate it step-by-step.

Automation like this matters for Australian business owners, marketing directors and CEOs because it reduces manual overhead, speeds up content publishing, keeps content consistent, and frees your team to focus on strategy rather than repetitive tasks. Whether you run a hospitality chain in Sydney, a retail catalogue in Melbourne, or a professional services blog in Brisbane, this workflow can scale your content output without scaling effort.

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Table of Contents

• Overview of the Google Sheets to WordPress workflow
• Variables and Google Sheets template
• Work with image: uploading featured images
• Work with text and tags: creating tags and gathering tag IDs
• Preparing data from the Google Sheet
• Control post status from the sheet (draft vs publish)
• Running the flow and verifying posts in WordPress
• Practical Australian use cases and examples
• Best practices, table of checks and troubleshooting
• Conclusion and next steps

Overview of the Google Sheets to WordPress workflow

The core idea is straightforward: keep your post content, metadata and publishing instructions in a Google Sheet, and use an automation tool to:

• Read rows that are marked for processing
• Upload a featured image (if provided) as a binary file to WordPress
• Create any new tags present in the row, capture their WordPress tag IDs
• Create a post via WordPress using the text, featured media ID and associated tag IDs
• Change the state of the Google Sheet cells to reflect processed posts and return the created post URLs or IDs

The video demonstrates a node-based flow that splits the process into two sections: one for images and another for text/tags. It uses a Google Sheets template and a variable store to collect tag IDs and media IDs needed by WordPress before publishing.

Variables and Google Sheets template

Before you build the automation, prepare a simple but structured Google Sheet that contains the fields the workflow will read. Typical columns include:

• Status — indicates whether the row should be processed (e.g. ready, draft, published)
• Title — post title
• Content — the post body (HTML or plain text)
• Featured Image URL — public URL of an image to attach as featured media
• Hashtags / Tags — comma-separated list of tags
• Output — where the automation writes the created post URL or ID

In the video, the creator sets up a variable called pis (a place to gather tag IDs and other identifiers). This intermediate variable is vital because WordPress requires tag IDs (numeric) in the post creation request rather than tag names. The workflow first ensures tags exist and then collects their IDs.

Tips for your sheet:

• Keep a dedicated column for automation status so you can safely re-run flows without creating duplicates.
• Use clear tag separators (commas) and avoid unusual characters in headings.
• Keep image URLs publicly accessible — private or protected URLs will fail to upload.

Work with image: uploading featured images

The image-handling section of the flow does three things:

1. Checks whether the Featured Image URL column is present and non-empty
2. Fetches the image as a binary payload
3. Uploads the binary to WordPress media via a REST or GraphQL endpoint and returns a media ID

Important considerations for images when automating uploads:

• File size: large images can slow the workflow; for automation, prefer optimised images (e.g. under 1MB where possible).
• MIME type and filename: the upload call should provide a filename and correct Content-Type header so WordPress treats it properly.
• Error handling: include logic to continue if an image fails (publish the post without a featured image) or to flag the row for manual review.

Example node sequence for images (conceptual):

• Read Featured Image URL
• HTTP GET image as binary
• Upload to WordPress media endpoint
• Return media ID for use in post creation

Work with text and tags: creating tags and gathering tag IDs

WordPress posts expect tags as numeric IDs. If a tag doesn’t already exist, you must create it first and then retrieve its ID. The video demonstrates splitting hashtags into items, creating any new tags, and collecting their IDs into the variable store.

Steps to handle tags:

1. Extract the tag string from the sheet row and split by comma (or your chosen delimiter)
2. Trim whitespace and normalise casing if you want consistent tags
3. For each tag name, check whether it exists in WordPress
4. If it exists, read its ID; if it doesn’t, create it via the tags endpoint and capture the new ID
5. Aggregate all IDs into an array that you pass to the post creation request

Why this matters: if you attempt to publish using names instead of IDs, WordPress REST endpoints generally reject tags or create duplicates. Explicitly creating/fetching tag IDs ensures predictable taxonomy and avoids cluttering your site with near-duplicate tags.

Preparing data from the Google Sheet

The video shows a preparation step that reads rows and maps fields such as text ID and featured media ID. This preparation is the heart of a robust automation because it ensures each post submission payload is fully formed before the create call.

Typical data preparation tasks:

• Normalise text (convert smart quotes, remove unwanted characters)
• Resolve relative dates or schedule information into standard ISO dates if scheduling posts
• Validate required fields: title, content or at least one of them
• Assemble the final JSON payload for WordPress with fields like title, content, status, featured_media, and tags (IDs)

Example JSON payload structure (conceptual):

{
  "title": "Post title from sheet",
  "content": "HTML content from sheet",
  "status": "publish",
  "featured_media": 123,
  "tags": [10, 20]
}

Control post status from the sheet (draft vs publish)

One powerful feature is controlling the WordPress post status directly from your Google Sheet. Use a dedicated Status column with values like publish, draft or future. The workflow reads this value and sets the status field in the post creation payload.

Benefits:

• Non-technical team members can queue posts as drafts for editorial review and switch to publish when ready.
• Automated scheduling becomes possible by setting status to future and providing a date.
• Lower risk of accidental publishing if the sheet controls the final publish state.

In the demo, the author shows two rows: one set to publish and another to draft. After running the flow, you can confirm the post states in WordPress — one will be published and the other remains as a draft for further editing.

Running the flow and verifying posts in WordPress

When you execute the flow, watch for these outcomes in your sheet and WordPress dashboard:

• Row status changes (e.g. from ready to processed or the script writes the new post URL).
• Output column contains the created post URL or ID for each processed row.
• Featured images appear in the WordPress media library and are attached to posts if specified.
• New tags are created and visible in the site taxonomy list.

If something doesn’t appear as expected, use the automation logs to inspect the HTTP requests and responses. Logging the WordPress API response bodies is very helpful for diagnosing permission issues, invalid payloads, or missing fields.

Practical Australian use cases and examples

Below are concrete examples of how Australian businesses can use this workflow to save time and keep content consistent.

1. Hospitality group managing daily specials (Sydney)

Imagine a café group with five locations. The marketing coordinator keeps a single Google Sheet of daily specials, images and tags like “breakfast”, “special”, “limited”. Using the automated workflow they can:

• Upload daily special images from their photographer’s cloud folders (public URLs)
• Publish posts to the appropriate location categories or tags
• Set new specials as drafts to obtain manager sign-off and publish once approved

2. Retail catalogue updates (Melbourne)

A boutique retailer uploads new product arrival copy and images to a sheet. The automation creates WordPress posts with featured images and product tags such as “women”, “outerwear”, “new”. Marketing can batch process seasonal updates and avoid manual entry for dozens of items.

3. Professional services content calendar (Brisbane)

An accounting firm prepares weekly articles in a sheet. Writers set rows to draft while editors work on content. When editorial sign-off is given, the status flips to publish and the automation publishes the approved posts — saving time and preventing accidental publishes.

4. Franchise network announcements (national)

Franchisors can centralise national announcements in a sheet and push them to franchisee sites or a central WordPress multisite. Tags like “compliance”, “training” or “promotion” make it easy to filter announcements across the network.

Best practices, table of checks and troubleshooting

Here are practical checks and steps to troubleshoot common issues when setting up a Google Sheets to WordPress automation.

Pre-flight checklist

Common issues and fixes

• Images failing to upload — Check the image URL accessibility and content-type. Log the HTTP response from the image fetch step.
• Tags not attaching — Ensure the workflow creates tags first and uses the numeric IDs in the post payload.
• Duplicate posts — Use a post-output or processed flag column to avoid reprocessing the same row.
• Permissions errors — Verify API user roles and the authentication method used by the automation tool.

Conclusion and next steps

Automating a Google Sheets to WordPress workflow brings tangible benefits to Australian businesses: faster publishing, fewer errors, consistent tagging and image handling, and better control over content state through simple sheet instructions. The video demonstrates a clear implementation with two parallel sections — image handling and text/tags — and the use of a sheet-driven status column to control publish behaviour.

Next steps for your team:

• Copy and adapt a Google Sheet template that includes Title, Content, Featured Image URL, Tags and Status columns.
• Build the automation flow with separate steps for image uploads, tag creation and collecting IDs, and a final post creation step.
• Test with a few rows first: one set to publish and one to draft, then verify results in WordPress and the sheet output column.
• Document the process for your content team so non-technical staff can queue posts safely.

If you want to discuss how this workflow could be adapted to your specific WordPress setup or business use case, start a conversation with your digital team and pilot the automation on a small set of posts. Automating content publishing is a high-return exercise that scales well across industries — from cafes and retailers to professional services and franchisors.

Have questions or want to share how your business would use this workflow? Leave a comment or discuss the idea with your content and marketing team — it’s a small lift with a big payoff.