Variations on Anchor Text in Backlinks

[gouri]

I have heard that when you are creating backlinks to your site it is good to vary the anchor text.

I wanted to ask you guys what you thought about this. Suppose the phrase you are trying to rank for is "build widgets". Of course, you will want a lot of backlinks that use the phrase "build widgets" as anchor text.

Would it be ok to use a phrase such as "build big widgets" or is it good to stick to a phrase such as "build widgets simply" when considering variations of anchor text?

The difference between the two is that the first one breaks up the phrase "build widgets" that you are trying to target and the second one does not.

[skweb]

Try to use text that makes sense to a reader because visitors use all sorts of combination (and some do not come to mind so obviously) to find the same information.

[pageoneresults]

I have heard that when you are creating backlinks to your site it is good to vary the anchor text.

Anchor text is usually going to be inline with the destination page <title>, that's the way I see it. If the title is 5-7 words, that gives you quite a bit of wiggle room to do plenty of variations. ;)

[gouri]

Let's say the anchor text would be used in articles (article marketing) linking to your website.

Is it ok to break up the phrase by putting a word in the middle of it or is it best to keep the phrase together and put words around it when creating variations of your anchor text?

Both ways can sort of be inline with your <title> and when someone reads it both of them can make sense but should the phrase you are targeting be kept together? Does that carry more weight with the search engines?