If I do a blast for a certain keyword, does it also help my website's overall ranking too or will it only help for that keyword?
Backlink is essential stuff for a site that have direct impact to promote a site and keyword help not only that keyword it has also a over all effect of your site.
Both. Look at wikipedia, they are on first page of nearly every keyword with only a couple of backlinks to that page sometimes, because they have a crazy amount of overal backlinks.
By blasting a certain "keyword" I am guessing you mean creating anchor links for these certain keywords? You have to look at this like a search engine would. Each anchor text back link to a site is seen as a "vote" for that site, for the keyword. So a search engine would see like 200 sites "voting" for a page for a certain keyword. The page rank and authority of the sites give strength to each "vote". So, blasting a certain keyword would primarily only help your serps for that keyword. It could help your other keywords if they are LSI keywords. (That just means if the search engine thinks they are related.) Try to vary your main keyword(s) with LSI (related) keywords. Most of the time it helps to build back links. So, build away and good luck!
Wikipedia does so well as often it is the one authoritative source on any particular subject. To try and rank above wiki on any particular one of those could be nigh on impossible. There is a balance to be struck. Keep in mind a popular phrase no penned by me but another user here at BHW. Quality Unique Content is King, Backlinks are Queen and together they make very happy children. You need strategy blasting away willy nilly will only provide short term results.
It works well for both. When G is determining which site to rank for a particular KW, it also considers the overall number of incoming links. Let's say site A and B both have X number of backlinks for a particular KW. To determine which site will rank higher, G will consider other backlinks to the site, even if they are not for the KW being ranked for.
Not really mixed answers. It's just there is no simple way to answer your question. If you are wanting quick and simple answers, maybe SEO is not for you. You could find out your own answer by taking action or using the search bar and read others experiences in the same subject. I am not writing this to be mean and I hope you find the answers you seek. Also, if you want specific answers to your questions, please write more detailed questions (More than one sentence). Especially for complex subjects.
Well, some people say yes, some people say no. I think my question is easy enough to understand: Do anchor text blasts help your website overall or does it only help the anchor text keyword? I'm mainly looking for people who have experienced this and to share their experience. That's why we're on a forum.
If you have good on-page, yes. You need to litter those keywords around and it will indeed start to rank on those too. anchor text backlinks to those words will boost it further.