As we’ve discussed in other posts, by default, WordPress treats your site as a ‘blog’ and shows your latest published content on the home page, unless you set a fixed page as your home page.
In a previously published tutorial, we have also shown you how to create a blog page to show your latest post.
Regardless of your choice to make display your newest blog posts on your front page or your blog page, WordPress lets you specify the number of items to display on these pages (i.e. ‘1’, ’7’, ’12’ etc.)
Your website will then display blog post entries on your blog page up to the maximum number of blog post entries you have set, even if your web site contains more posts than the number of posts you have set to display …
Being able to specify the number of blog posts will display on your site has a number of uses.
For example, you can set your blog to display only the latest single blog post that you have published. This is handy for example, if you are promoting a weekly special, a ‘deal of the day’ type of offer, publish the latest results of your sports team, post an upcoming event, set up a weekly corporate page for updates and announcements, etc.
You can also use this feature to fill an ugly 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 will display on main blog page.
In this step-by-step tutorial, you are going to learn how easy it is to specify how many posts will show up on your blog page.
How To Change The Number Of Posts Displayed On Your Blog Page
Through its content management system (CMS), WordPress allows you to specify how many blog post entries you want listed on the blog page of your web site.
How many posts you want to display is completely up to you. WordPress doesn’t limit this amount …
Note: Select a sensible setting that won’t overload your page as the entries load on your site. You can always raise or lower the number of items displayed.
To specify the number of published blog posts you would like to display on your website’s blog page site, select Settings > Reading from the WordPress admin menu …
Configure your settings in the Reading Settings section as shown in the screenshot below:
How To Specify The Number Of Posts Showing On The Front Page
If you are using your WordPress site as a blog (i.e. the default WordPress option), where the front page displays your most recent published posts, then set your options 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 post items that you want displayed – i.e. ‘1’, ’5’, ‘7’, ’15’ etc.)
- Click the Save Changes button when finished to update your settings…
Modifying The Number Of Posts On The Blog Page
If you are using your site as a website, where the home page shows a fixed page and your latest published posts 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 posts that you want to show – e.g. ‘1’, ’5’, ’10’, ’12’ etc.)
- Click on Save Changes when finished …
Now, when visitors come to your website, they will see blog post entries displayed either on your main 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 set the number of published blog posts you would like to have displaying on the blog page of your web site.
Related Posts
If you are a WordPress newbie, you may also find the following related posts useful:
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