This is of no interest to anyone but myself, but I find it fascinating. We started doing Pay-Per-Click ads recently and emphasized keywords that we didn't rank especially well for, including a few hyper-competitive terms for which we didn't even rank in the top ten (first page). Our ads worked and traffic is doing well. Interestingly, current traffic does not equal average old traffic + average Pay-Per-Click traffic. Instead, there appears to have been significant cannibalism of organic traffic by the paid ads. Obviously I don't have a large sample size (ads have only been running for a few weeks), but I can't help but wonder whether (1) our organic traffic is just hitting a natural slump or (2) we are finding out end users earlier in the research stage and that there may be a progression of search queries that ultimately lead users to our site. Perhaps our ads are finding users earlier on, in broader search queries. For support, I offer the Google Adwords bid per keyword, which shows that the broader terms ("divorce firm" for example) cost more than the more specific terms ("divorce firm near X location" - provided that location isn't just Chicago generally). I am just speculating here, but a good part of SEO is understanding the user's wants and decisions and not just increasing online visibility.