Liek let's just pretend I've been here this whole time and this isn't something new.

I'm helping someone build a forum, but we're having trouble attracting users. The forum is dedicated to providing support for the software up for purchase (Mostly converters and data compilers such as PDF and Excel using VB.NET and C#) on the main website, as well as general tech talk and programming guides. I've been posting with a few artificial users and having them respond to each other and while I'm starting to see an uprising on views and traffic, nothing is being converted into new users. I've looked around but I'm not a genius at this specific task and was wondering if any of you wonderful animals had any tips or advice.