What is your preferred method to do comprehensive keyword research for a client?

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

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  Neil Hannam: So what is people's preferred method to do comprehensive keyword research for a client?
  
  I use a combination of AdWords Keyword planner to gauge search volume and the intitle:"keyword" search operator to estimate the level of competition to build a list of options. From here it's then my subjective opinion of the best option to persue based on relevenacy of the keyword and the liklihood of ranking for it against the existing competition.
  
  Has anybody else got another method they find particualrly suits or that provides more comprehensive results and a more reliable way of assessing the suitable keyword to target?
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  Dave Elliott: I ask my clients to provide a list of 10 key phrases, then put this through the Google adwords planner to generate a load more.
  
  I then chuck this list through market samauri which gives me competition levels for a few useful metrics, like in title and local competition and blah.
  
  i then download the CSV and assign a traffic light colour to the keyword based on the data given. Anything that i assign green(good) i will have a look it in Google to check that the key phrase is genuinely relevant.
  
  if necessary i will then chuck this greenlist into uber suggest to generate some longer tail searches.
  
  I will then produce a final list of recommended key phrases and assign a suggested page for optimising on the clients site per keyword for their approval.
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  Devin Peterson: It's always great to use those tools like +Dave Elliott ; has suggested. In addition, sometimes I like to skim through a thesaurus or encyclopedia entry to find some new phrases, jargon, and synonyms that I can mix and match from time to time. I also use Google's Serendipity results and I used to use visual search engines like quintura but that doesnt seem to work anymore, has anyone found another one elsewhere?
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  Neil Hannam: Thanks +Dave Elliott . So you take the customers core terms, build a keyword list and then assign a page to a term rather than researching terms based on the existing page and it's content?
  
  Do you have some type of formula for calculating the number of searches to level of competition or is it purely down to your judgement? I find im pretty good at generating comprehensive keyword lists for pages but it's deciding which one or two to recommend is tricky to decide on.
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  Neil Hannam: Thanks +Devin Peterson I'm a big fan of the thesaurus option as well as it's easy to get stuck on the same differentiating terms when you do a whole stack of research at once.
  
  Never heard of Serendipity results, what do they offer that's different from normal results?
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  Dave Elliott: +Neil Hannam ;I do it by judgement. One site, industry or set of terms is so different to the next that I have yet to nail down a formula.
  
  Yeah, i do matching terms to page, rather than the other way round.  ;If you do terms to page than you can start recommending additional pages of content if a page doesn't already exist. So, i prefer doing it that way. I could be wrong, but it makes the most sense to me.
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  Shawn Cohen: My team is migrating to persona-based keyword research where we tie keywords to specific points in the sales funnel. This article and others on the topic were a big help in getting us started: ;https://www.iacquire.com/blog/the-persona-driven-keyword-research-process
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  Devin Peterson: +Neil Hannam ;I was referring to the "Searches Related To:..." section on the bottom of a google search results page. Hopefully I am using the term correctly when I say serendipity. It makes sense when you look at the meaning of the word but perhaps it actually refers to something else. Maybe someone can double check me. ;
  
  But in any case, it always gives highly relevant alternatives and I would assume they are very commonly searched terms as well otherwise it wouldn't have made the list.
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  Neil Hannam: +Devin Peterson ahhh yes, I use the related search terms too, just didn't know that it was called serendipity.