Changes should be on deepest level - words/ phrases. Rephrasing alone is not enough if the words used are exactly same.

Also, to get most bang for SEO campaigns/ traffic, I'd try avoiding having content that is 're-written' from just 1 source. I would use many sources and sort of give a 'new take' on this newly merged comprehensive consolidated content piece.  As I mentioned in another post, this huge content piece with a "new take" leads to your article being considered original and unique, and it also adds to likelihood of it attractive a lot more links than just a re-written piece would.

In the long run, having a blog on your main domain is going to outweigh the benefits of having a separate one.

Google is looking for stronger brand signals and pooling all your great content and resources under one roof will play a key factor in SEO.  If you have a blog on a separate domain and if you generate tons of links via social media.. all that "juice" is not being sort of 'transferred' to your main website, which I am assuming is the money maker.

Furthermore, Google is giving much less importance to 'keywords' in a domain. You can assume that keyword in domains is going to decrease in weight as a rank factor even more, as they can be 'gamed' easily so I wouldn't worry too much about that.

Having a separate domain could make more sense for big brands especially if SEO is not of great importance.

BBB is Better Business Bureau, an independent agency that verifies and accredits businesses - verifies address, etc. Their review process is pretty extensive (official visit from BBB staff in many major cities) and I believe a link from that site should be quality one, giving your site/biz location signals to Google

Here are some suggestions to rank specifically in one country

The first 2 points could be important or not depending on case by case basis (depending on competition, branding strategy, etc)

• Try getting the site hosted on that country's IP/ server
• Try using that country TLD
• Definitely get lot of national/local signals - country directory links, links from same country hosted sites, BBB or similar accreditation listing in that country,  etc