The cost is real and front-loaded
Video adds page weight, a third-party player, and usually a slower first render — the section of the page a visitor judges you on. It has to do more work than the text it replaced to be worth that.
1. Showing something that resists description
A product in use, a physical process, an interface doing something. Where a paragraph struggles and thirty seconds is obvious, video is genuinely the right medium.
If the video is a person reading your homepage aloud, publish the homepage.
2. A real customer saying something specific
A client describing the problem they had is hard to fake and carries weight a written quote doesn’t — provided it contains detail, which is what makes any proof credible.
3. Explaining something complicated once
A short explainer can carry a concept the sales team otherwise repeats on every call. That is a measurable saving, unlike brand films whose value nobody can state.
Always publish the text as well
Models read transcripts, not footage. Without an edited text version the argument inside your video is invisible to the systems answering questions about you.
Never autoplay, always reserve space
Autoplaying video is hostile on a phone and on a metered connection. Load the player on interaction, use a static poster image, and reserve the space so nothing shifts — layout shift is felt as slowness.