As we’ve discussed in previous posts, by default, WordPress treats your site as a ‘blog’ and shows your newest post entries on the main page, unless you fix a page as the main page.
In a separate tutorial, we also discuss how to create a blog page to display your latest blog posts.
Regardless of your choice to have present your most recent published articles on your main page or your blog page, WordPress lets you set a specific number of blog posts to display on these pages (i.e. ‘1’, ’6’, ’12’ etc.)
Your WordPress website will then display recently published content on your blog page up to the maximum number of items you have specified, even if your WordPress website or blog contains more posts than the number of posts you have set to display …
The ability to specify the number of blog posts can display on your site can be very useful.
For example, you can set your blog to display only the most recent blog post that you have published. This is handy, if, for example, you want to promote a weekly special, a ’book of the month’ type of offer, publish the latest results of a local sports competition, post an upcoming event, set up a weekly office page for announcements, etc.
You can also use this great feature to fill an empty space on your blog if your sidebar menu is too long …
Whatever the reason, WordPress gives you the flexibility to specify the number of posts that will show on your blog page.
In this tutorial, you are going to learn how to specify how many posts you want to show up on your blog page.
Specifying The Number Of Post Entries Displayed On Your WordPress Blog
WordPress lets you specify how many blog posts you want displayed on the blog page of your site.
The number of blog posts you would like displayed is entirely up to you. WordPress doesn’t limit this amount …
Note: We recommend that you choose a sensible setting that won’t overload your page as the content loads on your site. You can always increase or decrease the number of items displayed.
To specify how many published posts you would like to have displaying on the blog page of your WordPress web site, click on Settings > Reading from the WP navigation menu …
Configure the settings in the Reading Settings panel as shown below:
How To Specify The Number Of Posts Displayed On The Front Page
If you are using your WP site as a blog (i.e. the default installation option), where the front page displays your most recent blog posts, 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 post entries you want to show – e.g. ‘1’, ’5’, ’10’, ’12’ etc.)
- Click on Save Changes when done…
Specifying The Number Of Posts On The Blog Page
If you are using your WP site as a website, where the home page is a fixed page and your latest published content show up on a separate blog page, then edit your settings as described 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’, ’5’, ’10’, ’12’ etc.)
- Click the ‘Save’ button when done to update your settings …
Now, when visitors come to your site, they will see blog post entries showing 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 amount of published blog posts you would like to show on the blog page of your WordPress site.
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)