Here's an interesting post I came across in my Feedly. It's from the guys at Seer Interactive, talking about free tools to identify customers. 

Search is obviously featured in this blog post. Going beyond the keyword planner, search console, GA (site search), the post mentioned about a free tool called Answer The Public. The site takes your topic and shows the most important searches related to that keyword.

How are the most important searches shown?  

Using questions and prepositions.

e.g. For this sample search, my topic was 'breakfast cereals'. The questions around breakfast cereals were build around the what / when / how / why / are / where / which / who.

Some really awesome questions showed up which could be a great opportunity for generic keywords. Yes, these are long-tail but it's natural in terms of keyword flow in query. These are questions being asked by people exploring this topic and are on the edge. Going through some of the questions is like a deep-dive into the mindset of consumers and if, people are getting more health conscious when it comes to breakfast category.

Some great questions here:

Q - Which breakfast cereals are high in protein?

Q - Are breakfast cereals nutrious?

Q - Why are breakfast cereals good for you?

Compare this visualization to Keyword Planner results for 'breakfast cereals'.

After going into Healthiest Cereals ad group, here's what we get:

Lots of ideas but still, not too many long-tail keywords that describe user searches in a more natural way. The best part about Answer The Public is the simple (yet awesome) visualization that puts the questions (and prepositions) at the centre of the search query and then separate the searches that show what's bothering potential consumers on the edge/converted customers looking for a change/addition or non-believers in your product/category (e.g. 'Are breakfast cereals bad for you?')

Answer The Public tool is totally free (as of now, no idea if freemium is something expected) and would definitely recommend playing around with searches. People are already on it http://answerthepublic.com/seeds