As we’ve discussed in other posts, in a default installation, WordPress treats your site as a ‘blog’ and shows your most recent post entries on the home page, unless you fix a page as a front page.
In another post, we have also explained how to create a WordPress blog page to display your latest published content.
Regardless of your choice to have blog posts on your front page or your blog page, you can set a specific number of published post entries to display on these pages (e.g. ‘1’, ’5’, ’12’ etc.)
Your WP site will then display blog posts on your blog page up to the maximum number of posts you have specified, even if your site contains more posts than the number of posts set to display …
Having the ability to specify the number of entries will display on your WordPress site has a number of practical uses.
For example, you can display only the latest single post item that you have published. This is handy, if, for example, you want to send your readers to 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 monthly social 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 may be, With WordPress you have the flexibility to specify the number of blog posts that you want to display on main blog page.
In this tutorial, you are going to learn how easy it is to specify how many blog post entries you want to display on your WordPress blog.
Setting The Number Of Blog Posts Displayed On Your Blog Page
WordPress lets you choose how many published posts you want to display on your site’s blog page.
The number of blog posts you want displayed is entirely up to you. WordPress doesn’t limit this number …
Note: Select 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 blog post entries you want displayed on the blog page of your WP web site, go to your WP admin menu and choose Settings > Reading …
Configure the options in the Reading Settings section as shown in the screenshot below:
Editing The Number Of Posts Showing On Your Main Page
If you are using your WordPress site as a blog (i.e. the default WordPress option), where the main page shows your latest post entries, then edit your settings as shown below:
- Front page displays: Set this to Your latest posts
- Blog pages show at most: X posts (where ‘X’ is the number of entries that you want to display – i.e. ‘1’, ‘3’, ’10’, ’15’ etc.)
- Click on Save Changes when done to update your settings…
Specifying The Number Of Posts Displayed On The Blog Page
If you are using your WP site as a website, where the home page displays a fixed page and your newest posts display 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 items you want displayed – i.e. ‘1’, ‘3’, ’10’, ’12’ etc.)
- Click the ‘Save’ button when done …
Now, when visitors come to your website, they will see blog 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 set the number of blog posts you want to show on the blog page of your website.
Related Posts
If you are new to WordPress, you may also find the following related posts useful:
- How To Create A Static Home Page In WordPress
- How To Create A Blog Page To Display Your Latest Post Entries In WordPress
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