As we’ve discussed in previous posts, in a default installation, WordPress treats your website as a ‘blog’ and shows your latest posts on the front page, unless you set a specific page as the front page.
In another tutorial, we also discuss how to create a blog page to show your latest published articles.
Whether you choose to make your most recent published articles on your front page or your blog page, you can specify the number of items to appear on these pages (i.e. ‘1’, ’4’, ’10’ etc.)
Your site will then display blog posts on your blog page up to the maximum number of blog posts you have specified, even if your WP website contains more posts than the number of items set to display …
Being able to set the number of blog posts display on your site is useful.
For example, you can display only the latest blog post that you have published. This is useful, if, for example, you are promoting a weekly special, a ‘deal of the day’ type of offer, publish the latest results of a local sports competition, post upcoming events, set up a weekly community page for updates and announcements, etc.
Or, you can use this feature to fill an empty space on your blog if your sidebar menu runs too long …
Whatever the reason may be, With WordPress you have the flexibility to set the number of posts that will show on main blog page.
In this tutorial, you are going to learn how to change the number of posts you want to show up on your blog.
How To Change The Number Of Post Entries Displayed On Your WordPress Blog
Through its content management system (CMS), WordPress lets you choose how many published posts you would like listed on the blog page.
How many entries you would like to display is entirely up to you. there is no limit to this number …
Note: Choose 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.
To specify the number of posts you want listed on your website’s blog page site, go to your WP admin menu and choose Settings > Reading …
Configure the options in the Reading Settings section as per the screenshot below:
Specifying The Number Of Posts Showing On The Front Page
If you are using your WP site as a blog (i.e. the default installation option), where the home page displays your latest published items, 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 items you want showing – e.g. ‘1’, ’5’, ’10’, ’15’ etc.)
- Click on Save Changes when done…
How To Specify The Number Of Posts On Your Blog Page
If you are using your site as a website, where the home page shows a fixed page and your latest published blog posts show up on a separate blog page, then edit your settings 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 post items that you want displayed – i.e. ‘1’, ‘3’, ’10’, ’12’ etc.)
- Click the Save Changes button when finished to update your settings …
Now, when visitors land on your website, they will see blog posts displayed either on your home 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 posts you would like to display on your website’s blog page.
Related Posts
If you are a new WordPress user, you may also find the following posts useful:
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now