how relevant are relevant keywords?

[juice]

So.. i'm going after 2-3 key phrases which I think will best fit the people who would expect to find my site..

With my focus on getting inbound links.. Would links from sites that I know people would be on who might also be interested in my site be relevant to helping my ranking for my keyword even if this site is not targeting that keyword?

example:

i target a band name in the rock genre, i want to do well in searches for that band and info on that band.. but would getting links from high ranking sites for the term 'rock' help me? when i search for the band name i might not expect to find their site hihgly ranked but the link would be relevant..

I know these links are helpfull for traffic, but im mainly concerned with my PR ranking for this at the moment..

also.. if the phrases/kw i am targetting have a limited number of sites that appear.. what other alternatives for inbound linking are there that might help my ranking?

thank you so much for your help..

[JohnieWalker]

It's not the keyword that makes the site linking to you relevant. It's the relevance that matters. So go for it. However, using the keyword as the anchor text might be a great addition.