Floating around 2nd page for a while now.

Just wandering if somebody could shed some light on why my webpage isn't going up in the search engines.

About a week after I wrote the article, Google plonked me around page 6 (if I remember correctly) After building backlinks, I was up to page 2 within two weeks. Now I've been building backlinks ever since and all it does is fluctate between rank #17 and #13.

The website which is ranked #1 has 48 backlinks. My webpage has over 300 and they're not all crappy links (social bookmarking, articles, high pr blog comments, home pages of relevant websites etc.)

How do I make it break the first page?

Just keep building backlinks, google will finally shoot you up to the top position.

Patience is key

I am in the same boat as OP but I just landed on the second page a week ago. After some research people generally give the advice to be consistent and patient.

Backlink those backlinks like this:

Yep, just keep up what you're doing.

Check your onsite SEO - H1, etc.. make sure that's all good too.

I think you are doing it correctly. You just need to keep some patience.

Be patient and keep building backlinks