Millie Ravening’s 10th-minute penalty proved to be the difference between the two sides on a wet night under the lights in the Midlands.
There were three changes from the side that started the last league match against Halifax, with Kirstie Levell returning in goal having recently hit 50 appearances for the Clarets.
Jasmine Matthews stepped into the defence, while Aimee Kelly earned her first league start of the campaign.
After a fairly quiet start the game sparked into life when Yana Daniëls was tripped in the Baggies penalty area by Taylor Reynolds.
Ravening placed the ball on the spot and stepped up confidently, dispatching the ball into the bottom left corner to give the Clarets the lead.
Lou Roberts’ side took firm control from that point onwards and had multiple chances to extend their lead – the first of which saw Claudia Walker brush the outside of a post.
Charley Docherty then fired Thea Paul’s fizzing cross over the bar before Kelly shot straight at West Brom ‘keeper Charlotte Clarke.
The hosts did have a chance to restore parity before half-time, but Levell stood tall to deny Rhianne Oakley from close range.
Roberts was forced into her first change of the night less than 10 minutes after the restart, with Abbey-Leigh Stringer making way for Millie Chandarana through injury.
That didn’t affect the flow of the match, though, as Kelly showed great tenacity to win the ball and test Clarke before Daniëls took aim from range, but her radar was slightly off.
Two more defensive switches saw Paul and Matthews make way for Tilly Wilkes and Naomi Hartley on the hour, with the rain now starting to get heavier.
At this point there wasn’t a great amount of goalmouth action and last week’s hat-trick hero Charlie Chadwick replaced Kelly with 17 minutes of regular time remaining.
West Brom rallied after that and Emma Siddall produced a fantastic clearance to take the ball off an attacker’s toes before Levell produced a smart save high to her left to deny Fran Orthodoxu.
The Clarets had chances to double their lead late on, the best of which fell to Walker one-on-one, but it proved irrelevant as they held on to an important three points.
Next up is the visit of Blackburn Rovers in the Adobe Women’s FA Cup on Sunday 26th October.
Burnley: Levell, Docherty, Siddall, Matthews (Hartley 60), Walker, Ravening, Bradley, Daniëls, Paul (Wilkes 60) Kelly (Chadwick 73), Stringer (Chandarana 54)
Unused Substitutes: McAloon, Heidi, Cairns
West Bromwich Albion: Clarke, Reynolds, George, Orthodoxu, Green, Oakley, May (Rhodes 63), Robinson (Creaney 86), Warner, Evans (Watkins 63), Haughey
Unused Substitutes: Johnson, Jhamat, Rabjohn, Pullen
Goals: Ravening 11’