Im wondering what others have to say about this? I dont have any links to certain keywords but i do rank pretty well on them , like two or three word phrases, one of them is #2 out of 18 million results. And this does not only count for Google but it counts for all as other SE's as well. I read some other info today on other websites about the +/ - and there seems to be a lot of different thoughts.
Yes, From my understanding and experience internal pages pointing to another internal page will boost the PageRank (PR) of the page pointed to and this helps you to rank that page higher relative to the other pages
Yes. Just for fun, I decided to make myself rank well for my name. Just used pages on my site and made a link to my 'about' page with my name as the anchor text. Now I am in the top ten for my name (moved up over 100 serp positions).
Each page is for all intents and purposes, and independent web site as far as the spiders go and therefore all links are counted. The algorithms get to work sorting out what's what but every link counts (Don't go daft though because it can work against you if it is overdone).
Probably that is why people use some keyword instead of 'home' or 'about us', But without confusing your visitors.
Yes, internal links help. I don't do this often, but what I do is something like this: <a href="mydomain.com">my main keyword</a> Home So it still looks like a home link, but performs a function that I like too. I think you have to make sure that your "keyword" link is the last one to that page on a particular page or it won't matter though.
So the key is in naming your links after your keywords and not just "Home"? Also the more internal links you have pointing to each page increases rankings? Does this work for every page, or just pages with our keywords?
I've found the technique of using keywords in your home, etc links to be quite useful and can usually be done without hindering usability.