Anchor text and keyword research is so important if you want your links to gain respect and trust in the relevance rankings. Using the correct anchor text is the simplest thing you can do in terms of giving your links the best possible chance.

A simple link may have some benefit, but coupled with the right anchor text it is far more powerful. Google and the other SEs are looking to match things up, add things together and group similar things as much as they can. Their algorithms are mathematical and as such they want everything to be just so. By using the right anchor text, with the right links, with the right keywords, on the right page, in the right place, you are making everything very easy for the search engine. It's all there to see. The SE doesn't have to search around on the ground in the dark, with a torch; instead it gets broad daylight and some nice little arrows pointing to where everything is. The moral of this story is: make everything as simple as possible for the search engine. If you create hard work for it, you stand more chance of it getting bored and moving on somewhere else.