The West Midlands county runs continuously from Wolverhampton through Walsall, Dudley and Sandwell into Birmingham, then out to Solihull and Coventry. It looks like one city on a map and is nothing of the kind on the ground.
Because the built-up area is continuous, proximity behaves oddly here: a business can sit physically close to an enormous population while being commercially associated with one town only. Physical distance and market relevance come apart in a way they do not in most places.
The Black Country identities are real
Wolverhampton, Walsall, Dudley and West Bromwich have identities their residents take seriously, and a business marketing itself as Birmingham from any of them reads as being from nowhere. The upside is that these are substantial markets with noticeably less search competition than Birmingham.
Coventry is genuinely independent
Coventry sits within the county but functions separately, with its own economy, its university-driven demand and essentially no commercial overlap with the Black Country. It should almost always be treated as a distinct market rather than folded into a regional page.
Solihull is a different customer
Solihull is considerably more affluent than most of the conurbation, and what converts there differs accordingly — credentials, process and evidence rather than price. The same service frequently needs a different page for Solihull than for Sandwell.
Manufacturing is the business-to-business engine
The region retains a substantial automotive and engineering supply chain, and a large share of local firms sell into it rather than to consumers. Those buyers search by capability and specification, filter on accreditation, and never look at the map pack. If that is your market, capability and certification pages matter and local listings barely do.