The West Midlands conurbation runs continuously from Wolverhampton through Walsall, Dudley and West Bromwich into Birmingham, and then on to Solihull and Coventry. On a map it looks like one city. It is not, and the towns within it have distinct identities that residents take seriously.
This has a practical consequence. Because the built-up area is continuous, proximity-based ranking behaves unusually — a business can be physically close to a great many people while being culturally and commercially associated with only one town. Naming the wrong one costs you.
Birmingham is several markets
Birmingham is the largest city outside London and its districts vary enormously — the city centre and Colmore Row professional quarter behave nothing like Erdington, Kings Heath or Sutton Coldfield. Sutton Coldfield in particular is affluent, distinct, and frequently better served by its own page than by being folded into Birmingham.
Coventry is genuinely separate
Coventry sits inside the West Midlands county but functions independently, with its own economy, its own university-driven demand and no real commercial overlap with the Black Country. It should almost always be treated as a separate market rather than part of a regional page.
Manufacturing and the supply chain
The region retains a substantial manufacturing and engineering base, and a significant share of local businesses sell business-to-business into it rather than to consumers. That changes the strategy considerably — B2B buyers search by capability and specification rather than by “near me”, and the map pack matters far less than sector-specific service pages and verifiable accreditations.
Where to focus
Name the town, not the conurbation. Build separate pages for Birmingham, Coventry, Wolverhampton and Solihull rather than one regional page, and treat the Black Country towns individually where you genuinely serve them. For B2B firms, put the effort into capability and accreditation pages rather than local listings.