Local SEO Question

If you follow the ON-SITE SEO, everything will be fine.

Flash does not rank well, that is correct. As for the rankings on the redesign. I have had clients lose PR when doing a big redesign. As for keyword rankings, when redesigning be sure to keep the keywords she is ranking for on the pages she is ranking for, and keep the meta data the same, granted there is meta data on those pages now. Also keep the keyword density and markings close to the same as well, again if she currently has any.

The good thing is, if she has backlinks that are making those keywords rank, that won't change from a redesign.

Flash can rank but you have to do your title, meta tags and meta description well. This is where most flash site owners miss it.

It is possible but its also a little more difficult because Google can't read the content inside of the flash, however you can create HTML pages on the site that you can highly optimized for your targeted keywords and then redirect them to the home page via a 301 redirect. You can just keep the HTML pages off the main page navigation so site visitors who land on the home page don't see them.

You can also leave the existing pages on the server and do a 301 redirect to the home page. That way, if any pages are ranking, you don't lose them.

If you're doing a redesign in WP make sure you get a good suite of SEO plug ins from the start. But first get a good understanding of why she's ranking well already as you don't want to break the mix (SEOQuake free plug in for firefox is a freebie place to get some base info). Check the keyword density for her target keywords/keyword phrases (keyworddensity.com) and related/LSI keywords (also check out her competition as well). Make sure you keep the target kw and density as is and watch the page/site structure. Stick to or improve on the basics such as keywords in title (twice if possible), get your keywords into the MetaDescription (and adapt for Rach page), bold in first paragraph and in the last , H1, H2 tags etc, kw in graphic file names, alt tags and path/file structure and mention in the last sentence, in internal/anchor links/tags, ideally each page should be 750-1000 words tightly written around the kw/phrase and remember to write quality content aimed at humans (rather than the search engines) as you want to keep people to stay 'on page' and the bounce rate down. Get the onpage seo correct and switch to WP (and don't break the mix) and you'll have done pretty much all you can to maintain and improve positioning. I normally also run the HTML through an online validator as well, plus of course check for broken links. Oh and get in there quick with a Yahoo Site Explorer analysis (do all links to URL, not just home page) and run some checks on her main/higher ranking competitors too - it's due to close in September as Yahoo is moving towards Bing! and no plans published about a replacement/alternative yet. Good Luck!

yeah as long you keep a good on-page SEO the site will be fine because she is keeping the same domain so all her current backlinks will stay intact so ranks should actually improve for those terms not decrease.