As we’ve discussed in previous posts, in a default installation, WordPress treats your website as a ‘blog’ and shows your most recent published content on the home page, unless you set a specific page as a front page.
In a separate tutorial, we also discussed how to create a blog page to show your most recent blog post entries.
Whether you choose to have blog posts on your front page or your blog page, you can specify the number of published blog post entries to appear on these pages (e.g. ‘1’, ’5’, ’15’ etc.)
Your website will then display blog posts on your blog page up to the maximum number of posts you have specified, even if your website or blog contains more posts than the number of posts you have set to display …
Being able to specify the number of posts can display on your blog page has a number of uses.
For example, you can set your blog to display only the most recent entry you have published. This is useful for example, if 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 upcoming events, set up a monthly social page for announcements, etc.
You can also use this feature to fill an empty space on your blog if your sidebar menu runs too long …
Whatever the reason, With WordPress you have the flexibility to specify the number of posts that will show on main blog page.
In this tutorial, you are going to learn how to specify how many posts you want to show on your blog.
How To Set The Number Of Post Entries To Display On Your Blog Page
WordPress lets you specify how many published blog post entries you would like listed on your site’s blog page.
The number of blog posts you want displayed is entirely up to you. WordPress doesn’t limit this amount …
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 amount of posts displayed on your blog page.
To set how many published blog post entries you would like to have showing on the blog page of your web site, click on Settings > Reading from your WordPress navigation menu …
Configure the options in the Reading Settings panel as shown in the screenshot below:
Editing The Number Of Posts Showing On Your Main Page
If you are using your WP site as a blog (i.e. the default WordPress option), where the front page displays your most recent 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 you want showing – e.g. ‘1’, ’5’, ‘7’, ’12’ etc.)
- Click on Save Changes when done…
How To Specify The Number Of Posts Displayed On Your Blog Page
If you are using your site as a website, where the main page is a fixed page and your newest blog posts display on a separate blog page, then set your options 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 post items you want showing – i.e. ‘1’, ’5’, ‘7’, ’12’ etc.)
- Click the ‘Save’ button when finished …
Now, when visitors come to your site, they will see your most recent published articles displayed either on your main page or blog page, as per the settings 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 number of blog post entries you want to have displaying on the blog page of your website.
Related Posts
If you are a new WordPress user, you may also find the following topic-related posts useful:
- How To Create A Static Homepage In WordPress
- How To Create A Blog Page To Display Your Latest Blog Post Entries
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