It's 2025 and yep, you guessed it, keyword research still matters.

Even as match types change and close variants expand.

And for what it's worth, it's one of the most fun parts of our job 👍 Finding pockets of keywords that convert is still incredibly impactful for a business and their performance on Google Ads.

This year, we found huge wins in a variety of categories that we would’ve never thought about without in-depth keyword research.

Key questions I will answer in this article:

• How do we know what keywords are trending in our category?
• How do we pick up on how people actually search vs how we think they search?
• What are some newer, innovative ways to do keyword research?

While traditional methods like Google Keyword Planner & your Search Terms still provide immense value, I’ve found rewarding to use the 3 approaches below 👇

Strategy #1: Mining Customer Reviews for Keyword Gold

Customer reviews represent an often-overlooked source of authentic keyword data.

If you look at a product detail page, you might find 100 different keyword ideas for how YOU describe your product. Material, color, style, mechanics. But remember, keyword research is just as much about how you describe your product as it is about what the CUSTOMER says about your product.

For example, look at how much I can pull so much from a few customer reviews.

Let's take this review of a Taft boot:

From this simple review, I’ve got dressy, comfortable & stylish as variants to target.

Ok, that’s pretty straight forward. Let’s go deeper:

Here I’ve got an event keyword ~ "boots for wedding". That has me thinking about other events "everyday boots", "boots for traveling", "boots for the office".

Even bad reviews are helpful. They can help tell me what I’m not:

In the Taft example, I saw a lot of reviews of it being a size down or not true to size. Maybe I want to stay away from a “true to size” type keyword.

Let’s pull from another company. I recently bought a ski jacket and did a lot of research before making that decision. I ultimately landed on Stio.

Let’s look at how much we can pull from this single review:

Lightweight, waterproof, wind resistant. Ok, those are good but normal. How about a Ski Jacket with big pockets or slim ski jackets, or ski jackets with a removable hood? Good. Those keywords are more niche.

You even have in this review the height & activity of the individual. So I can pull "Ski Jackets for tall men" or "ski jackets for downhill skiing". That is something I probably would have not gleaned from the product page alone.

By analyzing actual language customers use, businesses can:

• Identify specific pain points
• Discover unique descriptive phrases
• Uncover long-tail keyword opportunities
• Understand natural language search patterns

Customer reviews are great for so many reasons.

How about using the search platforms to see what users are actually looking for?

Strategy #2: Platform Autocomplete Keyword Research

Have you ever gone to type out a search and ended up searching for something Google suggested instead? Me too. And it’s a little known hack I like to use for keyword research. It shows you how users are searching and/or what content the platform wants you to search.

The really cool thing about this technique is depending on the platform you use, you’ll get different results.

For example, if I type in “best blender for…” in Google:

And when I do that same search on YouTube:

How about TikTok?

With the rise of other Search platforms, it's important to check all of them for differences in how people search.

Leverage different search platforms' autocomplete features to understand diverse user search behaviors:

• Google: Broad, informational searches
• YouTube: How-to and tutorial-focused queries
• TikTok: Trend-driven, short-form content searches

This method provides real-time insights into what users are actively searching across multiple platforms.

Strategy #3: Utilizing Google Shopping's Organic Categories

Google’s new (& improved imo) Shopping tab now offers sophisticated category suggestions that reveal nuanced user search preferences.

By exploring these organic categories, marketers can:

• Identify emerging product subcategories
• Understand specific user product requirements
• Discover niche market opportunities

Example: Searching "best mens pants" might reveal categories like:

• Water Resistant Travel Pants
• Lightweight Performance Chinos
• Wrinkle-Resistant Business Casual Pants

Also, on the left hand side you’ll see how Google categorizes your products. Sticking with the apparel category, you can see we’ve got features and styles galore.

Conclusion: Keyword Research Matters But..

Where you look for inspiration matters too.

Effective keyword research remains crucial for:

• Improving search engine rankings
• Understanding customer language
• Creating targeted content
• Optimizing advertising campaigns
• Driving more qualified traffic

By adopting these innovative research strategies, businesses can develop more sophisticated, user-centric digital marketing approaches.

Happy Scaling 🌴

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