How to Get Verified on YouTube in 2024

Written by: Simon Grant
Last updated: July 30, 2024
Approx reading time:

Last updated on 30th July 2024

Now almost 20 years old(!!), YouTube has well and truly come of age. Shrugging off those awkward early years of Leave Britney Alone and Charlie Bit My Finger, Googleโ€™s video-sharing juggernaut has matured into a self-assured teenager boasting more than a billion users (nearly a third of the internet!) who devour a billion hours of video daily. When it comes to grabbing a slice of that PewDiePie, verifying your channel is the holy grail. If you were wondering how to get verified on YouTube, weโ€™ve got some pointers.

What is YouTube verification?

Can you name the founders of YouTube? Unless youโ€™re an avid tech trivia fan weโ€™re guessing not. In fact, it was three former PayPal employees โ€“ Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim โ€“ who were the brains behind what is now the worldโ€™s second biggest social media site. It wasnโ€™t until a year and a half after YouTubeโ€™s launch in 2005, and an explosion in popularity, that Google bought up the business for a cool $1.65 billion.

Of course, YouTubeโ€™s founding fathers have got plenty of reasons not to care about their relative anonymity. But we think itโ€™s a shame. All that hard work for minimal recognition. Which, if youโ€™ve been regularly uploading world-beating content to your channel and diligently building a following, is a situation you might be familiar with. In which case, you deserve more credit too.

This is where YouTube verification comes in. Not the straightforward kind that you get when setting up your account. Weโ€™re talking about that little grey tick box next to your channelโ€™s name that tells the world youโ€™re legit. Itโ€™s a badge of honour to gain one of these notoriously exclusive check symbols because they serve as a literal mark of approval from YouTube. It shows that your channel is an authenticated brand deemed worthy of the vlogosphereโ€™s attention.

Achieving YouTube verification doesnโ€™t grant access to favourable treatment, but it does bestow you with a whole lot of social proof. Weโ€™re talking jacked up credibility here. Consider that little grey box the online equivalent of the little black book โ€“ it opens doors to a wider network of viewers who may not have heard of your brand but are willing to give it a look if YouTube deems you worthwhile. As well as enhancing your brandโ€™s reputation, verification can protect it too. Your audience can sidestep any imposters looking to cash in on your content.

On paper, the eligibility requirements seem simple (though far from easy): gain 100,000 subscribers and submit a request to YouTube. If that was all it took then chances are you wouldnโ€™t be reading this blog now though would you?! In practice, YouTubeโ€™s powers that be, and their trusty algorithms, ultimately have the final say over whoโ€™s in and whoโ€™s not.

There are a few things you can do to improve your chances though.

How to get verified on YouTube

Okay, so youโ€™ve amassed those all-important 100,000 subscribers โ€“ congratulations! If youโ€™re now wondering how to get verified on YouTube, hereโ€™s a step-by-step guide on how to apply and what extra measures youโ€™ll need to take in order to gain YouTubeโ€™s approval.

1. Visit Google Support

Just click on the following link: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/3046484?hl=en, or copy and paste it directly into your browser.

youtube-help

2. Click โ€˜Contact flowโ€™

If you have the prerequisite number of followers, youโ€™ll find a link to Googleโ€™s โ€˜contact flowโ€™ in a grey box within the eligibility criteria section. If you donโ€™t have those 100k followers, itโ€™ll look more like this:

youtube-verification

3. Choose โ€˜Email Supportโ€™

The โ€˜Contact flowโ€™ link leads you to a page where you can opt to โ€˜Email support.โ€™

4. Fill in the form

Fill in the form and be sure to answer โ€˜yesโ€™ to the question: โ€˜Is this a request for a verification badge?โ€™

5. Submitโ€ฆand wait!

Now itโ€™s a simple waiting game! YouTube should put you out of your misery within 24 hours. By which time your check symbol may or may not appear.

nike-youtube-verified

How to improve your YouTube verification chances

As weโ€™ve mentioned, having a great following and filling out the form represent the bare minimum for getting verified. Youโ€™ll need to pay attention to the following details to give yourself the best possible chance.

Build a recognisable brand

If youโ€™ve got 100,000 subscribers then youโ€™re obviously doing plenty of things right. But even if you havenโ€™t, YouTube has been known to bend the rules a little in the past for creators whoโ€™ve built an exceptionally strong brand presence.

Expert Tip
Adopt a multi-channel approach with reciprocal links to and from your website and social channels, and leverage any notable collaborations or speaking appearances that further enhance your brandโ€™s reputation.

Post great content regularly

This one is a bit of a given but it bears repeating. The key to moving into the big leagues is consistency. For YouTube to take your channel seriously you need to be posting regular content and it better be good. That means zero margin for error. So no โ€˜off daysโ€™ when the lighting wasnโ€™t right and you couldnโ€™t find your motivation, or lengthy gaps in transmission. YouTube verification demands commitment and dedication. There are no shortcuts!

Encourage audience participation

The most successful YouTube channels arenโ€™t always the ones making the best content. Theyโ€™re often the ones who are most adept at self-promotion. How do they do that? By encouraging viewers to interact with their content through hitting โ€˜Likeโ€™, sharing with friends, and subscribing to the channel for more great content.

Our Insight
YouTube is far more likely to reward its most proactive YouTubers who go the extra mile to foster engagement because theyโ€™re effectively unofficial marketers for the site.

How to keep your verification badge

Itโ€™s one thing knowing how to get verified on YouTube and then achieving it, but quite the other to keep hold of it. Motivation and misdemeanours are often the main culprits whenever any title is relinquished. The same goes for clinching and hanging on to your YouTube verification. Maintaining an unblemished record, by following YouTubeโ€™s Community Guidelines and Terms of Service, is essential. Step out of line and youโ€™ll soon find your verification revoked.

Itโ€™s also worth bearing in mind that your verification badge is solely for your established channel name. If, say, your business underwent a rebranding exercise, you couldnโ€™t then transfer your YouTube verification to your newly named channel โ€“ your verification badge lives and dies with your original channel. You could of course reapply with the new channel, but that leaves you open to all the aforementioned perils and uncertainty. If it ainโ€™t broke, donโ€™t fix it basically!

Conclusion

Hopefully now youโ€™ve got a much better idea of how to get verified on YouTube. If youโ€™ve got the subscribers, have a strong and identifiable brand presence, are driving engagement and sticking to the rules youโ€™ve got more than a fighting chance. If youโ€™ve found this blog useful, you might also enjoy similar Wyzowl reads, including YouTube SEO: 10 Ways to Rank Higher, 21 YouTube Video Ideas for Businesses and our YouTube banner size template recommendations.

Written by <a href="https://www.wyzowl.com/author/simongrant/" target="_self">Simon Grant</a>

Written by Simon Grant

PR and Marketing expert with more than six years experience promoting high profile brands like the Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust and Sport Wales.
Attract Book

How to attract your audience with video

In a noisy, easily-distracted world, successful brands need to grab attention, share information, and generate enough interest and excitement so that their audience canโ€™t wait to find out more. In this book we explain how to use video as a tool to reach, engage and attract your audience at the perfect time.

  • This field is hidden when viewing the form
  • This field is hidden when viewing the form
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.