Can anyone answer this question?

Cheers

The short answer is "yes".

It will help although what you're doing is against Google's TOS. If you're building your own links, picking the targeted anchor text well then that's unnatural. I know it's a hard concept for most people on this forum to follow, but that's how she goes.

Thanks guys.

yeah, I know it's against Google's TOS and all that, but I am just wondering if it would work or not or whether Google would just see 'best london wedding photographer prices' as the keyword and nothing else?

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Can we forget the "anchor links" biz. Yes, I know it's all good SEO - but what do you want from a link?

Google link juice - or customer's cash?

The end result of your links is traffic. Get people interested in what you do and they will visit your site to learn more.

That means you don't have to infringe anything Google does because that is what Google want links for - human traffic (if you will allow such a term). Their algorithm is set up to replicate that, and it is not set up so that people can abuse its limitations.

Yes it will help, especially when it is a matching subphrase. In fact, its better to keep diversifying your anchor text with the shorter target keywd phrase as it is much more natural and better in the long run.

Yes it's great way to rank on google in a natural way.

Thanks guys.

I know the debate about whether building back links is ethical or not, but this question is purely about the technical bits and whether Google would recognise and give credit for a broader keyword phrase within a longer tail keyword.

I guess the consensus is that Google will

Google does not rank JUST the phrase that your anchor text is. Google expects anchor texts such as:

here is a great website on london wedding photography

obviously google won't rank that phrase alone. they will eliminate stop words such as "here", "is", "a", "on" then they'll give a bit of credit for "great", "website", "london", "wedding", "photography". Any combination of those words you will get a small boost for. Of course all the technical details are unknown to us, but that is, in my opinion, how Google handles it.

Of course you always want to vary your anchor text - that makes it look natural and you will benefit a lot more in the long run than focusing all of your backlinks on your search phrase.

Stop focusing on anchor text before you become obsessed with it. Focus on driving traffic through anchor text that is appealing. You'll rank naturally.

I had an article go viral..ish few months back. Every single site that linked to the article used the entire URL string, not anchor text. You don't need anchor text, you just need your keywords in your title. That article page ranks number one in Google, Yahoo and bing using a variety of keyword combinations found in the article title.

If your going to manually link your website (which could get your website penalized if abused), try pasting the entire URL. Customers will find you in search results with a variety of keyword combinations you have in your title.

Thanks guys!