If I understand your question correctly, you can't just link to the same anchor over and over again from your backlinks.
This is what Google Penguin cracked down on.
Instead, you should pay attention to what you're really saying on your page and the natural keyword that that page's content would naturally attract.
Start there.
Once you have a good idea of that, then your anchor keyword selection should mirror that and also should reflect the content on the page that you're linking from.
These two are the two wings of the SEO plane that you're trying to fly.
If you neglect one or the other, you're going to crash.
So it's all about relevance and value.
There has to be a good reason why people would click that link to go to your site, and that reason is never "It's good for SEO."
It has to make sense as far as the actual site visitor is concerned.