As we’ve discussed in other posts, by default, WordPress treats your website as a ‘blog’ and displays your latest posts on the main page, unless you specify a page as a main page.
In a previous tutorial, we also address how to create a blog page to display your most recent blog posts.
Regardless of your choice to have present blog posts on your front page or your blog page, you can set a specific number of items to appear on these pages (i.e. ‘1’, ’5’, ’12’ etc.)
Your WordPress site will then display blog post entries on your blog page up to the maximum number of items you have set, even if your WP website or blog contains more blog posts than the number set to display …
Being able to set the number of post items will display on your WordPress site has a number of practical uses.
For example, you can display only the latest single post that you have published. This can be useful for example, if you want to promote a different expiring offer each week, a ’book of the month’ type of offer, publish the latest results of your sports team, post an upcoming event, set up a monthly community page for updates and announcements, etc.
Or, you can use this feature to fill an ugly 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 blog posts that will display on your blog page.
Let’s show you, then, how easy it is to specify how many blog posts you want to show up on your site’s blog page.
How To Change The Number Of Blog Posts Displayed On Your WordPress Blog
WordPress allows you to choose how many published blog posts you want to display on the blog page of your website.
How many posts you want to display is entirely up to you. there is no limit to this amount …
Note: We recommend that you 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 on your blog page.
To set the number of posts you want listed on the blog page of your WP web site, select Settings > Reading from your WordPress navigation menu …
Configure the options in the Reading Settings page as per the screenshot below:
How To Change The Number Of Posts On Your Front Page
If you are using your WordPress site as a blog (i.e. the default installation option), where the home page shows your newest blog 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 entries that you want showing – i.e. ‘1’, ‘3’, ’10’, ’12’ etc.)
- Click on Save Changes when done…
How To Modify The Number Of Posts On Your Blog Page
If you are using your WordPress site as a website, where the main page shows a fixed page and your latest post entries display 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’, ’15’ etc.)
- Click the ‘Save’ button when finished …
Now, when visitors come to your website, they will see recently published post entries showing 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 set the number of blog post entries you would like to have showing on your WP site’s blog page.
Related Posts
If you are new to WordPress, you may also find the following posts useful:
- How To Make A Page Of Your Choice Become The Home Page In WordPress
- How To Create A Blog Page In WordPress
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