How Exactly Do I Get PR 1?

Hello all.
I am starting this thread because I do not know what exactly I need to be doing in order to rank my site and get to go up in PR (ex. PR1, PR2+).

So far I have been putting in a lot of work on writing good content. My site is not about something where you can write and write - its about freebies, deals and savings. There are blog I write which are over 500 words for certain freebies and blog posts which are just about general tips about savings.

Here is where I find myself struggling to understand what I am doing wrong. I do blog commenting, build backlinks from forum posts (signature linking mostly), follow the Paulie Cierra backlinking packets and update the site for the most part daily. Normally, when I create a post about something it get's indexed by Google within 1-12 hours. When I Google the complete title of a post, my blog comes up usually in 5th or higher position, based on how popular the post is. The Wordpress statistics, show me some keywords, which have delivered traffic to my site and when I Google them, my site comes up usually within first 10 position on the first page.

How come I am not achieving PR1 and how do I know if I am ranked? Also how do I know if certain backlinks that I have tried to create, have actually worked and have created a backlink for me?
Please I am only looking for good responses related to the post.
This is an ad that I inserted!

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