Why Your Local Business Needs To Get Facebook Verified (And How To Do It Quickly)

Facebook for business has been a real arse over the last few years, hasn’t it?!

Diminishing reach and paying to play were not mentioned when we signed up to it!

But what about this? A new (free) option for Facebook that will help small businesses.

We recently verified our Business Page and now we have a sexy ‘tick’ next to our brand – nice!

So how do you verify your small business on Facebook?

Then click on the ‘Page Verification’ from the right (it’s the third one down):

You’ll need to supply a phone number which Facebook will call you on (using an automated call) and give you a PIN. Then you simply add that PIN into the screen presented to you and “voila!”

What if it doesn’t work…?

I’ve heard from some business owners who said they were unable to verify their Page and I’m certain after testing a few of my clients’ Pages that this will be down to a one or more of the following reasons:

2) The address on your Facebook Page doesn’t match the one on your website

5) Another reason could be that your Page is not listed as a local business. To change this go to About>Page Info>Category and change one of the categories to ‘Local Business’.

This isn’t from Facebook… this is from some minor tinkering – but it makes sense to me.

When you verify a Google Business Page you have to get these things right, and I would think Facebook will have this in place.

All Facebook are asking for is a phone number and an address and it makes sense that they will check this elsewhere too.

Why should you verify your Business Page?

This is a great move by Facebook. It’s sorts out the ‘mess’ on their platform.

Too many businesses have old Pages and listings that are not correct or dormant.

Pubs are one of the main reason for this, with owners coming and going, and I’ve fixed a few restaurant Pages in the past!

This will make sure that the businesses you come across on Facebook will be the right ones and it will also help business owners tidy up messy listings by verifying the right one.

I think (and hope) this will make sure that future guests will check-in to the right one and thus tell all their friends where they are… with the right Page linked.

Having a tick next to your business name makes it obvious which one is for checking in to.

I also think that this will help you get found. Facebook have said that verified Pages will appear higher up the listings.

Although this is only for searches for your specific business I do think there’s some argument for verifying your Page just in case this means higher ranking for your niche or genre in your area too.

I’d also wager a bet that this will help your ranking outside of Facebook too as Google now ranks listings on Facebook. Making your Page official will be seen as A Good Thing by those Google bots!

Get verified!

I’m certain this will make it simple to verify your Page and it’s a good tactic for SEO.

Google will look across all sites for what they call ‘Citation flow’ which helps you rank locally if your details match up across lots of platforms.

Let me know how you get on, and if you need help tidying up old Pages I have some neat tips for that too!

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11 comments on this article

David morphew at 6:26am on October 17th 2015

top tip thanks

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Todd at 8:07am on October 19th 2015

Pleasure.

Got yours sorted yet?

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John Cooper at 20:04pm on October 17th 2015

I don’t see that option – verify page – do you know why?

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Todd at 8:07am on October 19th 2015

Hi John.

Iy might be because of the two reasons I mentioned in this post.

1) You don’t have the correct address on your Facebook Page and it doesn’t match other examples of your address online
2) You don’t have a phone number on your account or business listing.

What’s your Page? I’ll have a look for you.

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Bobby Stearns at 11:58am on October 19th 2015

Ours isn’t showing in that place either, despite address/tel number being accurate as far as I can tell.

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Todd at 12:32pm on October 19th 2015

Hey Bobby.

The phone number on your Facebook is 08000 85 85 95 but on your website it’s +44 20 7737 4040 also on Google maps its 0800 085 8595 sounds daft but pick one and make sure they’ll laid out exactly the same 0800 085 8595 is not exactly the same as 08000 85 85 95 for example.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Facebook are using Google tactics like this to decide if you can be verified yet.

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Bobby Stearns at 15:57pm on October 19th 2015

Thanks Mister T, I’ll try and change Facebook, there’s no way in hell our e-commerce team would let me change the website details 🙂 #manwithnoinfluence

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Geraldine at 21:09pm on October 20th 2015

Hmm, I can see the benefits but I’d rather not splash my home address (mobile’s OK) across my website or FB page, which is one of the reasons why I didn’t pick the Local Biz category in the first place.

It’s a no-brainer for businesses with a physical shop or office, but a tougher decision for those whose businesses are based at home. Boils down to personal choice, I guess.

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Todd at 15:40pm on October 21st 2015

***Update***

Lots of people are struggling to do this and I didn’t make it very clear in the post but the ‘Local Verification’ is for local Pages… so if you ain’t local you ain’t getting verified.

Want a tick? Change your Page to a ‘Local Business’ in your About section…

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Amanda Woodhead at 20:09pm on December 27th 2015

What else is there to do on Christmas Sunday? Ooh, I know! Get my page verified on Facebook! All done, and have been meaning to do this for a couple of weeks now 🙂

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Todd at 15:31pm on December 28th 2015

Awesome work… looks great with a tick on it! https://www.facebook.com/BlueOwlTherapy/?fref=ts

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