To make AI answers pull from your page more often, edit each key claim to carry a specific statistic, a named quotation, and a citation to a credible source, then tighten the passage and cut keyword padding. That is the practical distillation of the Princeton GEO experiment, which tested nine content edits and found evidence-adding changes lifted a source's visibility by up to about 40%, while keyword stuffing made it roughly 10% worse.
This is the action companion to that study explainer. The steps are ordered by the return the experiment measured, highest first. Apply them to your highest-value pages, and treat your own measured citation coverage as the scoreboard, not the benchmark's percentages.
Step 1: Add a specific, attributed statistic to each key claim
This was the single strongest edit in the study (about +41% on the paper's position-adjusted word count metric). Go through each section and replace one vague claim with a verifiable number.
- "Fast setup" becomes "live in under five minutes, no developer."
- "Widely used" becomes "used by 4,200 teams as of mid-2026."
- Attribute and date anything you did not measure yourself ("Google reported…, June 2026"), and cut any figure you cannot source. An unattributed statistic is a liability, not a lift.
The point is not decoration; a specific number is a clean, liftable unit an engine can quote with confidence.
Step 2: Cite authoritative external sources inline
In the experiment, adding citations to credible sources was the biggest equalizer: a source sitting 5th in the results gained roughly 115% relative visibility. Linking out to authoritative references adds corroboration, the signal engines use to decide a passage is safe to repeat.
- Link the primary source for each claim (the study, the standard, the official doc), with descriptive anchor text naming the source, not "click here."
- Citing your own sources models the behaviour engines reward and makes your page safer to quote. It is the same discipline as earning a citation yourself.
Step 3: Quote a credible source
Adding quotations lifted the study's perceived-authority score by about 28%. A short, attributed quotation from a recognised source raises the authority of the surrounding passage and gives the engine a crisp, liftable line.
- Use a real, verifiable quotation with clear attribution; never invent one.
- One well-placed quote per major section beats a wall of them.
Step 4: Tighten each passage so it is answer-first and self-contained
The study found that combining clearer writing (fluency optimization) with added statistics beat every single method on its own. Clarity is a multiplier, not an afterthought.
- Open each section with the direct answer in about 40–60 words, then explain.
- Keep each chunk self-contained (roughly 100–300 words) so it can be lifted without the rest of the page.
- Put specs, steps, and comparisons in tables or lists, the formats engines extract most cleanly. This is the same structural work behind how to get cited by AI and the six factors behind AI recommendations.
Step 5: Cut keyword padding
The one edit that went backwards. Keyword stuffing performed about 10% worse than the unedited baseline, because repetition adds no evidence and reads as low quality.
- Remove sentences that repeat the target phrase without adding a fact.
- Cover the topic's natural related vocabulary instead, so the page spans the full concept rather than one phrase. This is the difference between semantic depth and spam, and it is why you can grow AI visibility without spam.
Step 6: Re-measure per engine and refresh on a cadence
The Princeton figures are controlled-environment relatives, not promises for your niche, so the only number that counts is your own. After editing, track your citation share on each engine separately, and revisit high-value pages before they go stale, since citations decay after roughly a quarter.
Add a statistic, a source, and a quote to every claim that matters, tighten the passage, and delete the padding. That single edit pattern is most of what the first GEO experiment found actually works.
One caution: these edits raise how often you are cited, which is not the same as being named. If engines lift your facts but drop your brand, that is a separate job, covered in how to get named in AI answers. Add entity signals alongside the evidence so your name travels with your facts.
Applying this across a site is repetitive work, and its payoff is only visible if you can see citation share move. That is where Buffy Intel fits: it snapshots whether AI engines cite and recommend your brand over time, so you can edit a page, then watch whether the statistics, sources, and quotes you added actually lifted your citations, engine by engine, rather than assuming a benchmark percentage carried over.