Stockport has a borough population approaching three hundred thousand, its own centre, and a town that has changed considerably in the last decade. It is seven miles from Manchester and consistently treated as an outlying part of it by businesses that would do better claiming it directly.
The arithmetic is simple. Manchester city centre is among the most contested local search markets outside London. Stockport is not. Ranking first in Stockport is both more achievable and, for most service businesses, more commercially useful than placing mid-table in Manchester.
The town centre has genuinely changed
Substantial regeneration around the Underbanks, Redrock and the transport interchange has brought new independent hospitality, retail and creative businesses into the centre. That is a young market segment with different search behaviour from the borough's suburbs, and it is worth deciding which you are writing for.
The affluent south is a separate market
Bramhall, Cheadle Hulme, Marple, Heaton Moor and Didsbury's fringe are considerably more affluent than the borough average, and what converts there differs — credentials and evidence rather than price. Each searches separately, and competition in them is lighter than the spending power justifies.
Transport shapes the catchment
Stockport sits on the West Coast Main Line with fast London services, and a meaningful share of residents commute — some to Manchester, some considerably further. As with other commuter markets, that pushes demand into evenings and weekends and raises the value of out-of-hours booking.
What we would do first
Claim Stockport explicitly rather than hedging toward Manchester, then build out the affluent southern suburbs by name. Those two moves alone put most businesses ahead of local competition.