Content includes statistics
Adding specific statistics to your content boosts AI visibility by around 37%.
Why statistics boost AI citations
The GEO research paper found that adding specific numbers, percentages, and data points to a page increased its AI citation rate by 37% — the single largest effect size in the study, after brand authority itself.
The reason is that language models are trained to prefer quantitative claims over vague ones. A sentence like '90% of our customers renew in the first year' is more likely to be quoted than 'our customers love us'. The number gives the model something concrete to latch onto.
Where to get statistics
- — Your own product analytics: retention, adoption, time-to-value.
- — Customer surveys you have actually run.
- — Industry reports from Gartner, Forrester, McKinsey, or trade associations.
- — Government statistics for your market (Statbel in Belgium, Eurostat for EU).
- — Published academic research in your field.
How to cite them
Always attribute the source. An unattributed statistic gets treated as a claim; an attributed one gets treated as evidence. Even a simple link to the report is enough.