You get cited by making your content the clearest, most credible and most quotable source an AI can draw on. The largest academic study on the question, the Princeton GEO paper, tested content changes across roughly 10,000 queries and found a consistent set of levers. The highest-impact moves are:
- Answer the actual question directly, with the key takeaway in the first sentence so a model can lift it cleanly.
- Back claims with evidence: concrete statistics, data and citations to credible sources. In the Princeton study, adding statistics and citing reliable sources were among the strongest tactics, with statistics alone lifting a source’s share of the AI answer by around 40%.
- Keep your brand facts consistent and machine-readable: structured data, a clear about or entity page and identical company details everywhere.
- Build off-site credibility: reputable mentions, reviews and profiles that corroborate what your own site says.
- Write clearly. The same research found that improving the fluency and readability of a page produced a significant visibility gain, even with no new information added.
