Northamptonshire has two genuinely distinctive economies, and neither behaves like ordinary local trade. The county sits at the centre of the UK's distribution network, and it holds the densest concentration of motorsport engineering in the world.
The golden triangle
The area around Daventry, Northampton and Rugby is the heart of UK distribution, with an enormous concentration of warehousing and fulfilment. The businesses serving it — racking, materials handling, industrial cleaning, vehicle maintenance, temporary staffing, security — sell to facilities and operations managers who search by capability and buy through procurement.
For those firms the map pack is close to irrelevant. What matters is capability pages, accreditations stated plainly, and content that answers the questions asked during a tender.
Motorsport valley
Silverstone and the surrounding area hold a remarkable density of motorsport and high-performance engineering, with several Formula One operations based within a short radius. The supply chain around it — precision machining, composites, specialist fabrication, logistics, testing services — competes globally on technical credibility rather than locally on proximity.
If you serve it, write for engineers. Tolerances, materials, certifications and turnaround times are what the buyer is assessing, and a page that reads like ordinary local marketing will be dismissed immediately.
The towns themselves
Northampton, Kettering, Corby and Wellingborough are substantial towns with ordinary consumer economies alongside all of this. They are lightly contested in search, and businesses there do well by naming their town rather than the county — particularly since the county was reorganised and “Northamptonshire” is now a less meaningful administrative unit than it was.
Corby has an unusual profile
Corby's steel history and later regeneration left it with demographics and a business base distinct from the rest of the county, including a notable Scottish heritage in the population. It behaves as its own market and rewards being addressed as one.