How to become Facebook Verified Business

Facebook verified business

Facebook verification is one of the main requirements for getting WhatsApp Business API. If not done right, it can be a long drawn process as Facebook will put your verification process on hold and ask for clarifications. Hence we must nail this the very first time!

Prerequisites

Please have the following details handy when you start the verification process.

  • WhatsApp Business Account
  • Legal Business Name, address and website (mandatory)
  • Business phone number – not necessarily the WhatsApp Business API phone number
  • Proof for company incorporation
  • Proof for company address

Getting started with Verification

You should log on to your Facebook business account. Then you should go to Security Centre to start the Facebook verification process. You will see below details in the security centre.

Facebook Security Centre, Business verification

Note: If the “Start” button is disabled then your WhatsApp Business account is not set up so you need to sign up for WhatsApp Business API first.

Once you click the start button, you will be taken to the verification page with 4 step form to fill and submit.

Step 1: Basic Details

In this step, you are required to fill in your business details such as legal business name, address, phone, and website. All are mandatory details and you should take care to fill in properly.

Legal Name should exactly match with the document to be submitted in the subsequent steps. Facebook systems will reject the submission even if there is a minor difference in the enter legal name and the name on the document.

Also, ensure that you enter the website which matches with your WhatsApp display name.

Step 2: Select your Business

Once you enter all the details and click the ‘next’ button, Facebook will first search among registered businesses in the government databases for your company and show a list of companies with near matches (based address provided and name). If you are lucky enough to see your company on that list and then the whole verification process is a breeze through!! So you must use the address and name in the company incorporation certificate, Tax registration certificate, etc. For others, the documents need to be submitted for verification in the next step.

Step 3: Document Submission

You will be asked to submit the documents to verify your business name, address, and phone. Facebook has provided a link in this step to help you understand which all documents are acceptable to them. Please go through it carefully and submit the right document to avoid any delay in verification.

Final Step: Domain Verification

Facebook has provided two options to verify your business

  1. Email verification
  2. Website verification

Email Verification

Email verification is by far the easiest and quickest way to get your domain verified and submit for verification. Provide your business email which is having the domain address same as the website address provided in the first step. Facebook will send an OTP to that email; Enter that OTP to successfully submit for business verification.

Website Verification

Website verification can be done in three ways:

  1. Meta tag in HTML head section of index/homepage
  2. Adding a HTML provided by Facebook to your root directory
  3. Updating your DNS records with TXT provided by Facebook

For all three methods, Facebook bots take time to crawl and verify your domain. No there is no winner here 😀

Finally, make sure that your Legal name is clearly mentioned in the footer along with the copyright disclaimer and clearly is visible. Facebook bot sometime takes this into account while verifying your domain.