Hi Gloria,
You are most welcome. For the picture gallery, I suggest the following: Make a thumbnail gallery of 5-10 pictures per model (maybe with one "before" pic.). It is crucial that the pictures load quickly, so keep the pages for the gallery as clean as possible - avoid all gifs, complex backgrounds (especially if they are unoptimized), banners, animations and other "frills" - what is important here is that the visitor can immediately see the quality of your work. Thus, keep it simple: all thumbnails the same size, 10 - 20 thumbs per page, some 3-5 pages. Very important that people can click the "thumbs" and zoom in on the photos, take a closer look. When I click on "Twists" or "Braids" I get a price list and at the very bottom "Braids I", when I point at this, the cursor does not change (it does not appear "clickable"), that is not good, but when I do click on it I get a slideshow from slide.com. Clicking on any of the pics redirects me to this website instead of giving me a larger pic as I wanted (users are annoyed when they get an undesired reaction - such as a redirect). I suggest you give examples of the hair style by the price so people see what they are getting. For instance, not being an expert, it is hard for me to imagine what "Pixie or box Braids" are.... Furthermore, perhaps giving each of your creations a memorable name would accentuate their uniqueness and make customers curious to know more. For instance, instead of just writing "Micro Braids", why not say something like Sakura Micro Braids or New York Minute Cornrow or something exciting/mysterious/interesting like that and come up with a story why you named them so - this is a marketing move, but adds that something extra to the product. I also think that all the names of all pictures should be linked to a small information window about the hairstyle - how long it takes and how long it holds, is attachment used/needed, what hair it suits best, where it originates from, etc.
Well done, a great idea to add a promotional video, I have a couple of suggestions:
a) it buffers very slowly, you might want to split it up into several, shorter +/- 1m clips. At the moment it is 27.25 minutes long and including buffer time, it takes about 35 minutes to load and play (on my 1mbt/sec connection), during this time, the user cannot rewind and has to wait until the clip loads fully to go back if he/she would like to see something again.
b) The font in the clip is really hard to read - remember comment by nice gaijin. Here I would really advise for the text to be below the clip - not in the clip: preferably, clip split in steps and short info about each step (that is, if you take above advise and split the clip into short ones).
e) A live model would have more appeal than a doll - once again, remember comment by nice gaijin, about the complete package. People need to be able to identify with your product and unfortunately, the imaginations of most are very limited. Besides seeing the finished result, I believe that people (first-timers mostly) would want to know if the process is at all painful (hair pulling) and how long it takes. A calm, relaxed human model would reassure the doubtful about the former and my suggestion for your gallery would be to not only name the hairstyles, but also give the time taken to complete below the pictures.
f) I have been working in marketing for many years and I can honestly say that I am impressed with your idea to release a half-hour long promotional video. In your shoes, I would take it one or two steps further: you are obviously a master of your art, so why not make a deeper connection with your prospective customers? I do not wish to contradict the advise I gave in point 'a' - yes, for usability and quick online viewing short clips would be ideal, but a long promotional video would work wonders for your reputation and status. You could later take it further and participate in make-over TV programmes, fashion shows or give seminars to hairstylists across Japan, sell the video, etc. - this can be as big as you want it to be. Here is what in my opinion the video needs in addition to your skilled hands:
1. instead of starting off with the work, give it a bit of "dressing" so your viewers can get to know you: introduce yourself and staff, give a tour of your salon (inside and show location from outside so people can remember), show a few happy people with your ready/finished hairstyles, if you have had any famous clients, it would be nice if they could endorse or say a few positive words.... By this time you will have the viewer's full attention - it is not only the service that attracts people, but the comfortable ambiance and friendly people. Let the viewer "meet" you onscreen. Maybe a short personal note about how you came to Japan and a few words in Japanese - if you reach out, people respond in kind. Mention your address and working hours.
2. several human models with different types of hair (mention how long the braiding takes and how long you expect it to hold)
3. not only a music soundtrack, but you should also occasionally make comments while you work - talk the viewer through the process so he/she understands better what he is seeing. A little history about each hairstyle (e.g. how you came up with its name), a humorous experience from the past, a few minor trade secrets (not too many, but enough to get the "wow, that's clever" reaction from the viewer, etc. If you can show your attractive personality your would-be costumers will quickly become regulars.
4. In closing have the models and a couple of past costumers say a word or two about the experience, what their friends think, give your closing comments and again mention your address and working hours.
I think website address should be visible in one of the corners of the screen throughout the clip.
The less clicks and time spent it takes for a visitor to see the important stuff, the more effective your website will be. So I really suggest that you focus on getting the navigation right - not special effects, because although the latter may be impressive, if not properly optimized, they can do more harm than good by significantly slowing down the loading of the pages and your viewers will loose interest while waiting.
I wish you success,
Oleg