In my experience, no.

Whitespark says on their FAQ page, "We don't currently throttle our citation building because we know how Google merges data with their Places index in chunks. We have tested building hundreds of citations in one day vs spreading them out over time and have not found a difference. We don't believe citation velocity is currently something that Google is considering."

One place to start would be to run an analysis of your competitors, see where they've earned links from & how. Then see where you can add value by creating content and linkable assets.

This post might be helpful if using a elance,freelancer or odesk type of site: http://ontolo.com/blog/5-steps-assembling-all-star-link-building-team-odesk

Try the seomoz recommended list: http://www.seomoz.org/article/recommended

Using elance and freelancer to find the right person for SEO might be difficult. I'm sure there are good contractors on there, and some just running a (link) farm - literally.

Here's a great resource for finding the right category: http://blumenthals.com/google-lbc-categories/search.php?q=&val=hl-gl%3Den-US%26ottype%3D1

According to Google Places quality guidelines, "Categories should depict what your business is (e.g. Hospital), not what it does (e.g. Vaccinations) or products it sells (e.g. Sony products or printer paper). This information can be added in your description."

Even though it's the same color, the link stands out from the text because it has a different weight. I think it's more important that that links stand out, which this one does, but generally that means a different color.

It really depends on the industry and location.

Check out these two resources. I know some of them don't accept reviews, but this should give you some info.

http://getlisted.org/resources/local-citations-by-category.aspx

http://getlisted.org/resources/local-citations-by-city.aspx

I use WP Engine and I'm very happy with them. They're a bit pricey, but you get what you pay for.

Since you have more than a few sites, you can get a plan that hosts multiple sites which will offset some of the costs.

You can't go wrong with CSS. Endless styling possibilities. Also, I'd stay away from javascript because it's executed in order on the page. Meaning, if the JS doesn't load properly in the menu, the remaining JS below it wont load either.

In my experience, no.

Whitespark says on their FAQ page, "We don't currently throttle our citation building because we know how Google merges data with their Places index in chunks. We have tested building hundreds of citations in one day vs spreading them out over time and have not found a difference. We don't believe citation velocity is currently something that Google is considering."

It really depends on the industry and location.

Check out these two resources. I know some of them don't accept reviews, but this should give you some info.

http://getlisted.org/resources/local-citations-by-category.aspx

http://getlisted.org/resources/local-citations-by-city.aspx

Try the seomoz recommended list: http://www.seomoz.org/article/recommended

Using elance and freelancer to find the right person for SEO might be difficult. I'm sure there are good contractors on there, and some just running a (link) farm - literally.

One place to start would be to run an analysis of your competitors, see where they've earned links from & how. Then see where you can add value by creating content and linkable assets.

Here's a great resource for finding the right category: http://blumenthals.com/google-lbc-categories/search.php?q=&val=hl-gl%3Den-US%26ottype%3D1

According to Google Places quality guidelines, "Categories should depict what your business is (e.g. Hospital), not what it does (e.g. Vaccinations) or products it sells (e.g. Sony products or printer paper). This information can be added in your description."