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I would take the new sites and recreate the posts with identical information.  I would then redirect each old website posts permanently to the new posts on the new website.  I think you would lose a lot of link juice if you were just to redirect to a homepage.

Google adwords tool is a great tool, but you can also use the competition keyword analysis tool to see how hard it would be to obtain those rankings.  There are also sites like wordtracker.com which can also assist.

I think you can use it in your title, but I would only pick one.  I would probably use the city first in my title

"Chicago Car Loans | Website Name"

"Atlanta Used Cars | Website Name"

In your body text I would also include variations of these keywords to keep things honest.  you want to write content for your users and you keep your SEO inline with that.

Honestly I think there is way too much going on the page.  I find the layout hard to follow. I would like to see an image-slider with nice crisp photos and text below it.  Also I think you need to integrate a more clear and defined call to action to your website.

I agree - when adding 'alt tags' it is essential to describe the image and not stuff for keywords.  Typically I will work my keyword into my description if it doesn't look spammy.  For example, If I am working on a fence companies website and they have a page dedicated to "city fence"  I will make the alt tag "privacy 'city' fence |  6ft pickets " or something to that extent.

I agree with Tom.  Backlinks can be from anywhere as long as they don't appear to be blatant spam.  I tend to agree that a backlink serves a greater purpose than just link juice and may actually send relevant traffic and business to your company.  I would try to target as many local links as possible, but branching out to a global mindset won't hurt at all.

It really depends on what kind of site your friend's site is?  Is it relevant to your business niche?  How many links does the site point out to?  I think it looks a little unnatural for it to always link exactly to the page title.  I prefer one link from one root domain and I try to aim for it not to be in the footer.  Can't really say if its going to hurt your SEO effort - only trial and error will let you know

I have noticed when i add meta keywords in my websites for keywords im targeting bing comes back around and ranks my site's quite high.  I know a lot of people say "if i use meta keywords then my competitors know what I'm trying to target"  Who cares just do what you do and keep building quality content and authority and you will be perfect.

one thing to keep in mind is server down time and server speed.  A lot of websites can be affected by having a slow host or the website being deindexed for significant downtime.  I have a client right now that is on network solutions and had his site deindexed because it was down for 5 days because of a unix environment issue.  The website is still taking 8-12 seconds to load and is killing his traffic.  We are in the process of moving it now ;).

I would keep them as do follow and just brand with your company name.  Don't use any keywords such as web design.  You will not be penalized for a branding anchor text of your company name, unless your company names is 'shoes' and at that point why would you need to do any seo work

Here is my opinion on each of the items you are in:

I am not a fan of directory submissions.

3-5 guest posts is a good idea as long as the site you are submitting to has a lot of traffic and isn't super spammy with other guests posts.

I am a fan of local business directories - it will help you in your local footprint and will allow you to build some authoritative links.

Forum and signature backlinks are abused and overused.  The only time I would actually consider using this is if the forum site actually provide you leads (For example, a business message board, marketing forum, business community)

Squidoo Lens are now No Follow and also contain a ton of spam.  I think you would be better of building a blog on your website and building original content there.

I still think there is value in blog commenting as long as you are providing diverse anchor text and valuable non spam links.

I would consider this spam.  If you are ranking number one for a keyword and someone visits and leaves your site without a conversion, there was a reason for it.   Dominating multiple spots might sound like a great idea, but it is going to be hard to formulate unique content when you are targeting such similars keywords.  I would rebuild my original content to reflect multiple variances of the keyword and make sure that page is super authoritative and try to rank naturally.

Sync your website with Google Webmaster and use the disavow tool.

Im in favor of buying domains that are close to your brand and redirecting, but buying over 100+ domains to redirect isn't smart.  Unless they have a strategy built around populating unique content around them - its not a good move.

I would personally would hire a full time SEO consultant.  I wouldn't want that company doing SEO for me and definitely don't like what they are offering.  They say there method is Google Penguin accepted, but its super spammy.  Eventually it will be caught by Google and you will be left in a worse place.

I guess the main thing to think about is....

if they are not automating this process how in the world is it worth for them to supply all those links, articles etc for that price point each month?  If its not automated then its definitely contracted out overseas.

there are no particular rules, but I think its important to have your links stand out from body text for a user experience.  I would also recommend having a visited link and a hover color change as well.

When it doubt Google.  Syndicating all your reviews with a plus profile will only help your SEO strategy.  The only time I would prefer another review site is if it was specific to my industry like urbanspoon for restaurants or angies list for contractors.

There are multiple paid directories - as far as what is worth the price tag?  It really depends on what your competition is supporting in their link profile.  I personally don't engage in any paid directories, not because I feel like I'm going to get penalized, but I don't think any of the sites are worth a yearly amount.

1)Yahoo
2) Business Directory 
3) Best of the web
4) BBB

Hey Carla,

There are a bunch of different security measures you can take to protect your websites on the server side and on the wordpress side.  My company specializes in WordPress Security.  If you would like to PM I could give you some rates per site or a bundle for all of them.

Use the same link structure as your old site (-) the .html.  Then set up 301 redirects for each page in your .htaccess and you should carry over the majority of your link juice.