• by Aaron Baar , Staff Writer, March 15, 2016

It’s primary day here in Illinois (and Florida and Ohio and Missouri and North Carolina), and as voters head to polls, they may be looking online for last-minute information to help them make decisions, or at least to find out the basic information about where, when and how to vote. Search is shaping up to play a big role in candidates’ strategies this election season. Google has already taken some major steps to serve the national candidates, giving them the opportunity to offer real-time, long-form answers to policy questions via “text, photos and videos” during debates and other election events.

And last week, Google introduced “Posts,” a feature that allows candidates to publish sharable views and other information to come back as part of the search results on their names. (While the feature is currently invite-only, and was initially offered to the presidential candidates, Google has said it plans to extend the feature to business and other organizations.)

“In some ways, this feature could be a more accessible way for consumers to find information,” writes Leena Rao. “What this possibly allows is that Google searchers get the information they want more easily within search. Especially on mobile, consumers want to be able to get results fast.”

As with most things search, however, the real candidate value lies in how they can provide exactly what searchers are looking for. Atop the results of a “where can I vote?” search today is a paid ad for Hillary Clinton that takes me to a tool on her site using my registered voter address and e-mail (not required, but as a database builder, it’s smart) to find the address of my polling place. Providing such information isn’t likely to sway my vote, but it’s never bad to be at the top of a search query.

“For brands trying to understand how they can be relevant when it matters most, here’s a case study to emulate,” writes Laurel Marcus. “Anticipating the moment that searches for voting information would peak in different states, Hillary’s campaign figured out a way to own a piece of the conversation.”

Right now, some random (and admittedly unscientific) searches of campaign issues (“Supreme Court replacement,” “fix the economy”) and phrases (“Hillary wants my guns”) aren’t turning up paid ads for any candidates (though “fix economy crisis” is topped by a paid ad for Ron Paul). But as the season wears on — and candidates look to define themselves and issue-oriented political organizations get involved — the war over keywords will likely get more intense.