Hertfordshire is frequently dismissed as commuter territory, which undersells it. The county has two genuinely distinctive industries — film production and pharmaceuticals — alongside the commuter economy, and businesses serving either of those compete on quite different terms from ordinary local trade.
The commuter belt dominates the daytime
Watford, St Albans, Hemel Hempstead, Stevenage, Hatfield and Hitchin all have substantial populations that are largely elsewhere between nine and six. That shifts demand toward evenings, weekends and appointment-based services, and it makes out-of-hours booking more valuable here than in most counties.
It also means London is a live competitor for anything that does not require attendance. In St Albans and Watford particularly, a professional services firm is competing with London firms it never sees in local results.
Film and television production
The cluster around Elstree, Borehamwood and Leavesden supports a substantial supply chain — equipment hire, set construction, transport, catering, security, accommodation. These are business-to-business relationships won on credentials and referral, and the searches behind them are specific and low-volume rather than local.
If you serve production, that deserves its own page written in the industry’s language. Almost nobody has done it well, and the buyers are searching.
The Stevenage life sciences corridor
Stevenage has one of the larger concentrations of pharmaceutical and cell-therapy activity in the country, with the supply chain that follows — laboratory services, specialist cleaning, regulated waste, technical recruitment. Again, business-to-business, capability-led, and poorly served by conventional local SEO.
What we would prioritise
For ordinary consumer-facing businesses: the town, out-of-hours availability, and a clear reason to choose local over London. For anyone in the film or life sciences supply chains: sector pages that speak the industry’s language, and accreditation made visible. The two require almost entirely different work.