As we’ve discussed in previous posts, by default, WordPress treats your website as a ‘blog’ and shows your most recent blog posts on the front page, unless you specify a page as your main page.
In a separate tutorial, we also discuss how to create a WordPress blog page to show your most recent published articles.
Regardless of your choice to make blog post entries on your main page or your blog page, WordPress lets you specify the number of blog posts to show on these pages (i.e. ’2’, ‘3’, ‘9’ etc.)
Your website will then display blog posts on your blog page up to the maximum number of items you have specified, even if your website contains more blog posts than the number of items you have set to display …
The ability to set how many blog posts can display on your blog page can be very useful.
For example, you can display only the most recent post item that you have published. This is handy for example, if you promote a weekly special, a ‘deal of the day’ type of offer, publish the latest results of your sports team, post upcoming events, set up a quarterly office page for updates and announcements, etc.
Or, you can use this feature to fill an empty space on your blog if your sidebar menu is too long …
Whatever the reason, With WordPress you have the flexibility to set the number of blog posts that you want to show on main blog page.
Let’s show you, then, how to easily specify the number of posts will show up on your blog page.
Specifying The Number Of Posts Displayed On Your WordPress Blog Page
Through its content management system (CMS), WordPress lets you specify how many published posts you want to have displaying on the blog page.
The number of posts you want displayed is completely up to you. there is no limit to this amount …
Note: Pick a sensible setting that won’t slow down your page as the content loads on your site. You can always increase or decrease the number of posts displayed on your blog page.
To set how many posts you would like to have showing on the blog page of your WordPress web site, choose Settings > Reading from the WP dashboard menu …
Configure your settings in the Reading Settings screen as shown below:
Specifying The Number Of Posts Showing On Your Front Page
If you are using your WP site as a blog (i.e. the default WordPress option), where the main page shows your newest published blog post entries, then edit your settings as described below:
- Front page displays: Set this to Your latest posts
- Blog pages show at most: X posts (where ‘X’ is the number of blog post entries that you want displayed – i.e. ‘1’, ‘3’, ’10’, ’12’ etc.)
- Click the ‘Save’ button when done…
Editing The Number Of Posts Showing On Your Blog Page
If you are using your site as a website, where the home page displays a fixed page and your most recent post entries show up on a separate blog page, then set your options as shown below:
- Front page displays: Set this to A static page, then select Posts page: > your Blog Page from the drop down menu
- Blog pages show at most: X posts X posts (where ‘X’ is the number of blog post entries you want to show – i.e. ‘1’, ‘3’, ‘7’, ’12’ etc.)
- Click the Save Changes button when finished …
Now, when visitors come to your site, they will see recently published post entries showing either on your front page or blog page, up to the maximum number of posts you have specified …
To learn how to change the length of your post excerpts, see the tutorial below:
Congratulations! Now you know how to change the amount of published blog post entries you would like to display on your WordPress site’s blog page.
Related Posts
If you are a WordPress newbie, you may also find the following topic-related posts useful:
- How To Make Any Page Of Your Choice Be Your Home Page In WordPress
- How To Create A Blog Page To Display Your Latest Post Entries In WordPress
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