Big Idea or Enduring Question:

• How Can Progressive Rendering Enhance Site Performance and Optimize User Experience?

Objectives:

After reading this blog, you’ll be able to:

1. Understand Progressive Rendering and its impact on Experience Cloud.
2. Learn how to optimize page load times for a seamless user experience.
3. Explore best practices and techniques to incrementally load content without affecting site performance.
4. Implement lazy loading, caching, and conditional rendering for responsiveness.
5. And much more!

👉 Previously, I’ve shared several posts on effectively implementing key branding and SEO features for Experience Cloud sites. Why not check them out while you’re here?

1. Step-by-Step Guide to Generate a Sitemap in Salesforce Experience Cloud
2. Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Custom Robots.txt for Experience Cloud Sites
3. Provide Search Engines with Fresh Content Snapshots for Experience Cloud Sites

Business Use case

Olivia Bennett, a Junior Developer at Gurukul on Cloud (GoC), is part of a team working on building an Experience Cloud site for the company’s help portal. The portal is branded with the URL: https://help.gurukuloncloud.com/

She has already:

1. Branded the portal URL as described in this post.
2. Configured Google Analytics™ for Experience Cloud Sites.
3. Learned and implemented Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions to improve SEO.
4. Created a custom robots.txt file and modified the page meta tag/description.

Despite these optimizations, the site still struggles with slow loading times, especially when rendering dynamic content. Olivia realizes that boosting page speed is crucial for enhancing user engagement and minimizing bounce rates. That’s when she discovers Progressive Rendering—a technique that prioritizes loading essential content first while deferring non-critical elements until needed.

In this blog, we’ll follow Olivia’s journey as she implements Progressive Rendering to transform the Experience Cloud site into a lightning-fast, highly interactive platform. She strategically structures the homepage to load elements in a predefined sequence (as shown in the sscreenshot), ensuring an optimal user experience.

What is Progressive Rendering?

Progressive Rendering is a performance optimization technique that enhances user experience by loading web content incrementally, instead of waiting for the entire page to load before displaying anything.

It works similarly to video streaming – instead of downloading the entire file first, users can start watching while the rest loads in the background. Likewise, Progressive Rendering prioritizes critical content, allowing users to interact with the page immediately while secondary elements continue loading behind the scenes.

Why is Progressive Rendering Important in Experience Cloud?

Experience Cloud sites often contain dynamic content, Lightning web components, and rich media, which can slow down page performance. Without Progressive Rendering, users may face delays in content display, leading to frustration, higher bounce rates, and lower engagement.

A slow-loading site not only negatively impacts user experience (UX) but also reduces search engine rankings, making it harder for users to find the site.

Challenges Without Progressive Rendering

Without Progressive Rendering, Experience Cloud sites may suffer from:

1. Sluggish Load Times: Heavy content and complex components slow down the page.
2. Blank Screens: Users experience delays before seeing any content.
3. Poor User Engagement: Frustrated visitors may leave before interacting with the site.
4. SEO Decline:  Slow websites rank lower in search results, reducing visibility.
5. Increased Server Load: Inefficient resource handling strains performance and consumes excessive bandwidth.

How Progressive Rendering Improves Performance

By prioritizing and loading essential content first, Progressive Rendering ensures a faster, more seamless experience, addressing the key challenges above.

1. Accelerated Page Load Times: Critical elements appear instantly, reducing perceived wait time.
2. Enhanced User Interaction: Visitors can engage with the site without unnecessary delays.
3. Optimized Resource Utilization: Bandwidth consumption is minimized, improving performance across devices.
4. Improved SEO Rankings: Google favors faster sites, leading to better search visibility.

By structuring the rendering process in phases, Progressive Rendering transforms Experience Cloud into a high-performance, user-friendly platform.

Optimizing Component Loading in Experience Cloud with Priority Levels

Before implementing Progressive Rendering, use the Page Optimizer tool to evaluate whether it’s the right approach for your site pages. This tool provides recommendations on component prioritization and helps assess the performance impact of your configurations.

Once you’ve decided to use Progressive Rendering to enhance page performance and user experience, you can assign priority levels to top-level components within the content area. This ensures that critical content loads first, while secondary elements appear later, preventing unnecessary delays in usability.

Assign one of three priorities to any top-level component.

By assigning appropriate priority levels to components, you can significantly improve load times, streamline user interaction, and create a more seamless experience in your Experience Cloud site.

Automation Champion Approach (I-do):

Now it’s time to set up Progressive Rendering for the Experience Cloud homepage, based on Olivia’s business needs to improve performance and user experience.

Step 1: Enable Progressive Rendering for Your Experience Cloud Site

To begin optimizing your Experience Cloud site, the first step is to enable Progressive Rendering. This setting must be enabled per site, meaning there is no option to enable Progressive Rendering for all Experience Cloud sites in your organization.

1. Open Experience Builder.
2. Click on the Settings → Advanced, then navigate to Performance section. 
3. Locate the Progressive Rendering option, toggle it ON to activate the feature.
4. Select Publish to make the changes live.

Step 2: Identifying and Assigning Priority Levels to Page Components 

In this step, we will assign priority levels to page components, ensuring that critical content loads first while less essential elements load later for optimal performance.

1. Open Experience Builder.
2. In the Published Page dropdown, select the Home page.
3. Select a component on the page.
4. From the Actions Menu in the Property Editor, select Assign Display Priority.
5. Choose the appropriate Priority Level and click Assign.
6. Repeat steps 3–5 for all remaining components.
7. Once all priorities are assigned, click Publish to make the changes live.

Things to Remember

1. Enable Progressive Rendering only if your site has slow-loading pages; use the Page Optimizer tool to assess its need.
2. Finding the right priority settings may require multiple rounds of testing and adjustments.
3. Assign Highest priority to only a few critical components like navigation and primary CTAs.
4. Page layout may shift slightly as components load, so always test for a smooth experience.
5. Review and update priority settings when adding, removing, or modifying components.

Formative Assessment:

I want to hear from you!

What is one thing you learned from this post? How do you envision applying this new knowledge in the real world? Feel free to share in the comments below.