The Black Country

What is the Black Country, and where does it start and end?

The Black Country is a region of the West Midlands, separate from Birmingham, usually taken to mean the four metropolitan boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and the City of Wolverhampton. It has no official boundary and no council of its own, so “Black Country” describes an identity more than an administrative area, and even locals disagree about its edges.

The name is usually traced to the soot and smoke of coal, coke, iron, glass, brick and steel production, and to a coal seam about thirty feet thick, the thickest in Great Britain, that reached close to the surface here. Each town specialised. Chain-making survives at Cradley Heath, glass-making grew up around Stourbridge, Willenhall became known for locks, and Walsall for saddlery and leather. Heavy industry then declined sharply from the late 1970s, and much of the land that heavy industry left now holds trading estates, retail parks and business parks.

That history matters to a marketer for a plain reason. These were separate manufacturing towns rather than suburbs of one city, and they still behave that way: people say they are from Dudley or Walsall, not the Black Country, and councils, postcodes and high streets differ town by town. Birmingham is not part of the region, and has its own page at our Birmingham area page; the wider region around both is covered on the West Midlands page. The four sections below take one town each.

Which part of Dudley borough are you trying to be found in?

Dudley is both a town and a metropolitan borough, and the borough's commercial weight is not in the town centre. Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council also covers Halesowen and Stourbridge, and the borough's business and innovation enterprise zone is at Brierley Hill, beside Merry Hill. So “seo agency dudley” could mean any of several places.

Which one it means changes the whole plan, and the history explains why. Merry Hill shopping centre was built between 1985 and 1990 as an Enterprise Zone, and it drew major retailers away from Dudley town centre. The Waterfront Business Park sits next to it, and the enterprise zone, designated as DY5, was later extended to industrial land at Pensnett and Blackbrook with the stated aim of linking advanced manufacturing to digital and professional services. Pensnett Estate, near Kingswinford, is described by its owner as one of the largest secure industrial estates in Europe. Dudley town itself keeps the castle, the zoo and the Black Country Living Museum, which makes it a place visitors search for as well as a place firms operate from.

In practice that gives three different problems under one borough name. A unit on Pensnett Estate or at the Waterfront is usually found by trade and capability rather than by a map. A town-centre shop, café or attraction near the castle is found by Maps and by “near me”. And a business in Halesowen has a B62 or B63 postcode that looks like Birmingham, so its listing needs care. For anyone typing “digital marketing agency dudley”, the useful thing a supplier can do is say which of those it is able to help with, and do so remotely, because our registered address is in Oldbury and not in Dudley.

What changes when the customer is in Wolverhampton?

Wolverhampton is a city, with city status conferred in 2001, and the City of Wolverhampton Council covers it, but a Wolverhampton postal address does not stop at the council's boundary. Postcodes with Wolverhampton as the post town include Wombourne, Perton and Codsall, which are in South Staffordshire.

A buyer typing “seo agency in wolverhampton” may therefore be in the city or in a village outside it, and a business that lists itself as being in Wolverhampton should know which it means.

The city's employment geography is unusual. The i54 business park sits on the boundary between South Staffordshire and Wolverhampton, is part of the Black Country Enterprise Zone, and was developed jointly by Staffordshire County Council, the City of Wolverhampton Council and South Staffordshire Council. Its occupiers have included Jaguar Land Rover's engine plant, MOOG Aerospace and Eurofins. A supplier to a site like that is in a business-to-business search from the first click, which is a different job from ranking a high-street shop.

There is also a thing worth saying plainly to anyone considering a “digital marketing agency wolverhampton” search. The University of Wolverhampton Science Park on Glaisher Drive, a joint venture of the university and the council, lists marketing, accountancy and legal providers among its tenants. Agencies are on the doorstep of this city, so we do not compete on being close. We compete on the work, and the questions you would put to any agency before hiring it apply to us too.