Is irrelevant backlinks real? And does anchor text affect all keywords?

[Marvellous]

I ask because I see many of my competitors with irrelevant backlinks still ranking at the top, despite what SEO say about it. I have a Web Design business, most of my competitors have their backlinks from sites they built ie "website by _____" and thats how they rank at the top.

Should I keep getting backlinks from my clients (with permission)?

Also does anchor text on backlinks affect all keywords in your website? Example is if you provide multi services ie plastering and decorating. You have 100 links pointing to your site with anchor text of "plastering". Technically your site still has 100 backlinks, will that also help boost the onsite optimisation for the keyword "decorating"?

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

Technically, for the time being I would imagine, Google views that as a relevant link, since they are a web development company and developed those sites.

I am not the biggest fan of links like this. While most are good hearted and natural, it just always seemed a bit gray hat. The plus side of this is that they tend to be in the footer and low value, especially when trying to rank for phrases outside of "website development". They aren't really worth it, especially if they are sitewide, it looks shady. I would let them do what they're doing - I always thought one link on the client's homepage or an "About Us" page was more natural and effective.

Outside of that, I would look for different query and keyword opportunities that tend to be low competition and higher volume, those could be areas you're missing out on. Check out SEMRush for competitive rankings and search opportunities, your Search Console Top Queries for areas you may not know you have, and Keyword Difficulty to gauge what areas you need to work on to possibly see higher rankings (the SERP Analysis report is amazing for this).

Here are some good resources as well:
Why We Can't Do Keyword Research Like It's 2010 (Whiteboard Friday)
The Illustrated SEO Competitive Analysis Workflow (Moz)

Beyond that, when it comes to anchor text, I would focus more on branded anchor text and focus your efforts on the content of your website being based on what your audience is searching for. That way, your content associates your brand with the topic and when Google crawls it can understand that your content associates your brand with a topic and relevant variations. If you do this with your anchor text, you run into the issues of overoptimization, and that can possibly lead to issues down the road.

Keep your link building and content development natural, and you'll be on the right side of history.

Hope this helps! Good luck!