When October rolls around, retailers will be finding their free ride on Google Product Search is over -- it will be replaced by Google Shopping. No longer will marketers be able to just provide Google a data feed of their inventory and product details and sit back and enjoy free activity from organic search.

I've long regarded search query data as a clear manifestation of customer needs and wants. Search engine users go to great lengths to precisely articulate what they're in search of. There's power in harnessing that intelligence. It allows search marketers to speak the language of prospective customers, and meet the needs of site visitors after the click. Yet, despite all the power that search query data alone holds, augmenting that intelligence with social data can prove to be infinitely more powerful.

A recent series of three posts on the Harvard Business Review blog by Karen Freeman, Patrick Spenner and Anna Bird explored some of the myths about how consumers make decisions. I think each of these has direct implications for search marketers, so over the next three weeks I want to explore them one at a time.

The subject of analytics and measurement is one of the most critical areas to your ongoing strategy and tactical development. By acting in a participatory manner toward search, social, and content marketing, your business gains equity in visibility, trust, authoritativeness, direct revenue generation, and awareness, among many other factors.

A close friend and mentor of mine once told me his key to successful public speaking: "The trick isn't in finding a new topic; the trick is to find a new audience." I've put that advice to use on a few occasions, and when the topic is search I've developed a good, repeatable story. I'm comfortable with the subject matter, which allows me to be confident in the delivery. But as good as this advice is in the short term, it clearly isn't viable forever. Things change, and new subjects become popular as the interest level in familiar ones diminishes. …

Live with yourself long enough, and you learn a few things. For instance, I learned that I like digging holes.

Loyal readers know I'll go to great lengths to find inspiration for my Search Insider columns, culling SEM lessons from fictional characters, Middle Eastern countries, Major League Baseball general managers, immortal CEOs, and even random sports. Today, my muse is the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival, held this past weekend in Manchester, Tennessee. Ten years ago, at the very first Bonnaroo, my buddies, Matt, Lance, Bryan, and I made a pact to return for our 10-year reunion in 2012. Sure enough, we stayed true to our word. Here are five takeaways from Bonnaroo that can be applied to SEM:

It's hard for me to believe, but a year has passed since I wrote the column Welcome To The Summer Of Search. That piece was one of my all-time favorites to write. In it I looked forward to another summer spent in the trenches of the search industry, while reflecting on day one of the SMX Advanced conference I was attending. A year later and here I am again, back to the grindstone after a week spent with industry colleagues at SMX in (chilly) Seattle.

Last week, I explored the dark recesses of the hyper-secret Google X project. Two X Projects in particular seem poised to change our world in very fundamental ways: Google's Project Glass and the "Web of Things."

If you're a Google Website Optimizer user like me, you likely received an email last week indicating that the free Google testing tool was being discontinued. While at first I was disappointed by this announcement, reading further, Google said it would be integrating testing functionality directly into Google Analytics. For those of us who have used Google Website Optimizer for many years, the change may seem challenging.But there are two main benefits I already see from the new system.