Going off of what Surreal Dreams said, it's probably best to style the anchor tag in my experience, but it really does depend on what you are doing. Here's an example:
Html:
<div class="parent-div">
<a href="#">Test</a>
<a href="#">Test</a>
<a href="#">Test</a>
</div>
Then the CSS:
.parent-div {
width: 200px;
}
a {
display:block;
background-color: #ccc;
color: #000;
text-decoration:none;
padding:10px;
margin-bottom:1px;
}
a:hover {
background-color: #ddd;
}