As we’ve discussed in previous posts, by default, WordPress treats your website as a ‘blog’ and shows your newest post entries on the main page, unless you specify a page as the front page.
In a previously published tutorial, we also discussed how to create a WordPress blog page to display your most recent published articles.
Whether you choose to have posts on your home page or your blog page, WordPress lets you set a specific number of blog post entries to show up on these pages (e.g. ’2’, ‘3’, ’12’ etc.)
Your website will then display your most recently published articles on your blog page up to the maximum number of blog post entries you have set, even if your website contains more blog posts than the number of posts set to display …
Having the ability to specify how many blog post items display on your site can be very useful.
For example, you can set your blog to display only the latest single blog post you have published. This can be useful, if, for example, you want to send your readers to a different expiring offer each month, a ‘deal of the day’ type of offer, publish the latest results of a local sports competition, post an upcoming event, set up a weekly corporate page for updates and announcements, etc.
Or, you can use this great 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 set the number of posts that will display on main blog page.
In this tutorial, you are going to learn how easy it is to change the number of posts to show up on your WordPress blog.
Specifying The Number Of Posts Displayed On Your Blog Page
Through its content management system (CMS), WordPress allows you to choose how many published blog posts you want listed on your blog page.
How many blog posts you want displayed is completely up to you. WordPress doesn’t limit this number …
Note: Choose a sensible setting that won’t overload 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 the number of published blog post entries you want to show on the blog page of your website, go to the WP dashboard menu and select Settings > Reading …
Configure your settings in the Reading Settings section as shown below:
How To Specify The Number Of Posts Showing On Your Home Page
If you are using your site as a blog (i.e. the default installation option), where the main page displays your newest published 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 post entries that you want showing – e.g. ‘1’, ‘3’, ’10’, ’15’ etc.)
- Click the Save Changes button when finished…
To Specify The Number Of Posts Displayed On Your Blog Page
If you are using your WordPress site as a website, where the front page shows a fixed page and your latest blog posts 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 to show – i.e. ‘1’, ‘3’, ’10’, ’15’ etc.)
- Click the Save Changes button when finished …
Now, when visitors land on your website, they will see your most recent published articles displayed either on your front 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 posts you would like to have showing on the blog page.
Related Posts
If you are new to WordPress, you may also find the following topic-related posts useful:
- How To Set A Specific WordPress Page As Your Home Page
- How To Create A Blog Page To Display Your Latest Post Entries
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)