How to Find Business Phone and WhatsApp Numbers (Fast)
Email is not always the best way to reach a small business. A lot of local owners, such as plumbers, salons, dentists and restaurants, answer the phone or WhatsApp far faster than they open an inbox. If you sell web design, SEO or WordPress services, knowing how to find business phone numbers and the WhatsApp number of a business gives you another useful channel. This guide covers where those numbers usually sit on a website, how to tidy them into a consistent format, how to collect them in bulk, and how to contact people without being a nuisance.
Where to find business phone numbers on a website
Most businesses want customers to call them, so numbers are rarely hidden, just scattered. Check these places in roughly this order.
1. The header
Service businesses often put a phone number in the top bar or next to the main menu, sometimes with a “Call now” button. On mobile, this is often a sticky button at the bottom of the screen. If you see one, it is usually the main sales or bookings line.
2. The footer
The footer is the most reliable spot. It commonly holds the full address, the main phone number, opening hours and sometimes a second number for a different branch or department. If a site has several locations, the footer may list all of them.
3. The contact page
Look for pages called Contact, Contact Us, Get in Touch, Book or Locations. These pages often have extra numbers that are not in the header, such as a mobile number for the owner, an emergency line, or a direct number for a specific team.
4. Click-to-call (tel:) links
A number that you can tap on a phone is a link that starts with tel:, for example tel:+441612345678. Right-click the number and copy the link address, or view the page source and search for tel:. This is handy because the link version is often cleaner than the visible text. The page might show “0161 234 5678” while the link already holds the international form.
5. WhatsApp chat links
To find the WhatsApp number of a business, look for a green WhatsApp icon or a floating chat bubble, usually in the bottom corner. These buttons link to addresses such as https://wa.me/447700900123 or https://api.whatsapp.com/send?phone=447700900123. The digits after wa.me/ or phone= are the WhatsApp number in international format, without the plus sign. Many WordPress sites add these buttons with a plugin, so they appear on every page.
6. Google Business Profile and maps listings
If a website has no number at all, search the business name plus the town. The Google Business Profile panel or the maps listing usually shows a phone number. Treat this as a cross-check. If the number on the profile differs from the website, the website is often the more current one, but it is worth noting both.
About pages, legal pages and linked social profiles (especially Facebook pages) can also list numbers. See our guide on how to find social media profiles of a business.
Formatting the business phone numbers you find
Numbers collected from different sites come in every style imaginable: with spaces, dashes, brackets, a leading zero, or “+44 (0)”. If you plan to dial them, message them or import them into a tool, standardise them first.
The cleanest format is international E.164 style: a plus sign, the country code, then the number with no spaces and no leading zero. Here are some examples:
| As shown on the site | Country | Standard format | WhatsApp link |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0161 234 5678 | UK | +441612345678 | wa.me/441612345678 |
| +44 (0)7700 900123 | UK | +447700900123 | wa.me/447700900123 |
| (212) 555-0147 | USA | +12125550147 | wa.me/12125550147 |
| 02 9876 5432 | Australia | +61298765432 | wa.me/61298765432 |
A few rules of thumb:
- Drop the national leading zero when you add the country code (UK, Australia and many others).
- Remove “(0)” from numbers written like +44 (0)20.
- Keep the original as well. Store a “phone as shown” column next to your cleaned column so you can check mistakes later.
- Mark the type if you can tell: landline, mobile or WhatsApp. Only mobile numbers can normally receive WhatsApp messages, and a WhatsApp link confirms the business actually uses it.
In a spreadsheet, find-and-replace handles spaces, dashes and brackets. Check a sample by hand afterwards, because some countries have exceptions.
How to find business phone numbers in bulk
Opening sites one by one works when you need ten numbers. It does not work when you need five hundred. A bulk process usually looks like this:
- Build your site list. Search a keyword plus a city (for example “roofer leeds”) or start from a list of domains you already have. Our guide to finding local business leads covers this step.
- Visit the key pages of each site. Homepage, contact page and about page cover most numbers.
- Extract tel: and WhatsApp links, plus visible numbers in the header and footer.
- Put everything in one sheet with one row per website and separate columns for phone, WhatsApp and email.
- Clean and dedupe. Standardise formats and remove duplicate rows from businesses that appear twice.
Phone numbers work best alongside an email and social links in the same row. For a full prospect sheet, see how to build a B2B lead list for the columns worth including.
Respectful outreach to the business phone numbers you find
Calls and WhatsApp messages feel more personal than email, which is exactly why they need more care.
Make the first contact useful
- Lead with something specific. “I noticed your contact form on the mobile version doesn’t submit” is far better than “Do you need a new website?”
- Keep it short. One or two sentences on WhatsApp, or under a minute on a call, then ask whether they would like more detail.
- Say who you are and how you found their number (their public website).
- Call during business hours in their time zone, and avoid busy times for their trade, such as a restaurant at lunchtime.
Know when to use which channel
For a first approach, email is often the least intrusive, and you can follow up by phone if there is interest. A WhatsApp link on a website suggests the business is happy to be contacted that way by customers, but that is not the same as agreeing to sales messages. Use your judgement, and if in doubt, start with email. Our cold email templates can help with that first message.
Honour opt-outs and the law
If someone says “not interested” or “don’t contact me again”, record it and stop. Keep a do-not-contact list and check it before every campaign. Rules on unsolicited calls and messages differ by country. In the UK, PECR covers marketing calls and texts and has rules on numbers registered with the Telephone Preference Service. In the EU, GDPR applies to personal data, including sole traders’ mobile numbers. In the US, there are separate telemarketing and texting rules alongside CAN-SPAM for email. This is not legal advice, so check what applies where you and your prospects are. Our article on whether cold email is legal is a good starting point.
Find business phone numbers faster with WP Finder
If you sell to website owners, WP Finder can handle the collection step for you. You search by keyword and country, or load your own list of domains, and it checks up to 40 sites at the same time. Alongside public emails and social links, it picks up click-to-call phone numbers and WhatsApp chat links from each site’s public pages, and it also tells you whether the site runs WordPress. Results appear live, and you can export to Excel or CSV with one column per contact type. The first 150 sites are free with no card needed, so you can download it and try it on your own niche.
Conclusion
To find business phone numbers, check the header, footer and contact page first, then look for tel: and wa.me links, and use the Google Business Profile as a backup. To find the WhatsApp number of a business, the chat button link is the most reliable source. Standardise everything to international format, keep it in one tidy sheet, and when you reach out, be brief, specific and quick to respect a “no”.
FAQ
How do I find the WhatsApp number of a business?
Look for a WhatsApp icon or chat bubble on their website and copy its link. The number is the string of digits after wa.me/ or after phone= in the link, already in international format. If there is no button, check their Facebook page or Google Business Profile.
Is it OK to message a business on WhatsApp for sales?
It depends on your country and theirs, and on how you do it. A public WhatsApp link is meant for customers, so a sales message can feel intrusive. Many people start with email and only move to WhatsApp once the prospect shows interest. Always stop if asked, and check local rules such as PECR or GDPR.
What format should business phone numbers I find be in?
International format with a plus sign and country code, no spaces and no leading zero, for example +441612345678. Keep the original number in a separate column so you can spot conversion mistakes.
Can I find business phone numbers on many websites at once?
Yes. You can work through a list manually with a spreadsheet, or use a tool that visits each site’s public pages and pulls out tel: and WhatsApp links for you, then exports them to Excel or CSV.
