Miscellaneous suggestions/thoughts

I'm not much for social media myself (as in really not much), but since so many are these days, perhaps more facebook posts and tweets would help with google page rank, especially if they mentioned threads with long-tail type of search terms. I realize Big Dog's plate is already pretty full around here, but it seems such posts don't require much more time than a post here. Of course perhaps I overestimate the results such social media can produce.

It probably is but as I said I don't do much w/social media so don't know either. But what I really meant is not sharing/liking/twitter-linking posts here so much as writing a short original FB post or tweet that mentions such a thread here, along with specific niche terms (i.e. long-tail), that hopefully will get sucked up into the great google and positively affect page rank. For instance you could just say something like "interesting discussion on [topic X]" and give a link and maybe a little additional info. Maybe something a couple times a week that wouldn't take much time.

Most Facebook posts are private, so Google doesn't see them. Even if I put up a public Facebook post, I don't think Google would ever find it.

I don't have a FB account, but when doing various google searches I often come across snippets from someone's FB account. If I click on it I get the main FB page for someone but not the contents. But perhaps this has to do with privacy settings because for most commercial accounts (possibly paying FB something I don't know), I can read the entire page and all the posts, which are thus visible to google's spider bots.

Have you considered just starting threads about the real actual definition of fluency? Experience tells me this will drag people from the dark corners of the internet to tell you why you're wrong. It'll do wonders for registration and forum activity

More seriously though have you considered installing a Wiki? This one seems OK, it costs $10 though but is integrated with XenForo. As the forum grows it'll have the same problem as HTLAL. There will be 500 Russian resource threads and pages of the same questions all with the same answers. I'd suggest if you do go with a Wiki to link it back to the forum so there can still be discussion, so at the bottom of the page have a "Discuss this in the forum" link and then link it back the to the individual topic. Certain topics just work better as collaborative editing and this solves the editing cut off time as well. I think the VaultWiki page has a nice summary:

Secondly in terms of SEO, I would think that for menu potential users they start off with Google and the searches go something like:

• how do I learn French
• best way to learn French
• learn French quickly

etc. Then after a bit of reading they may land up with (before forking out any money):

• is Pimsleur any good
• review of Pimsleur
• Pimsleur alternatives
• comparison of Pimsleur and Michel Thomas

etc. Obviously you can replace French and Pimsleur with something else, so blog posts/topic posts/static pages/Wiki pages or whatever covering these type of topics or product reviews will probably drive up traffic.