As we’ve discussed in other posts, by default, WordPress treats your website as a ‘blog’ and shows your most recent post entries on the main page, unless you set a specific page as your home page.
In a previous article, we have also shown you how to create a WordPress blog page to show your most recent published posts.
Whether you choose to make your most recent published articles on your home page or your blog page, WordPress lets you set a specific number of published posts to show up on these pages (e.g. ‘1’, ’4’, ’12’ etc.)
Your website will then display blog posts on your blog page up to the maximum number of blog post entries you have specified, even if your web site contains more blog posts than the number you have set to display …
Having the ability to specify how many blog posts will display on your blog page can be very useful.
For example, you can set your blog to display only the latest blog post you have published. This can be useful, if, for example, you want to promote a weekly special, a ‘deal of the day’ type of offer, publish the latest results of a local sports competition, post upcoming events, set up a quarterly community page for updates and announcements, etc.
You can also use this feature to fill an ugly space on your blog page if your sidebar menu runs too long …
Whatever the reason, WordPress gives you the flexibility to set 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 to display on your blog.
How To Set The Number Of Blog Posts To Display On Your WordPress Blog
Through its content management system (CMS), WordPress lets you choose how many posts you want to show on your site’s blog page.
How many entries you want displayed is entirely up to you. WordPress doesn’t limit this amount …
Note: We recommend that you select 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 specify the number of published blog post entries you would like listed on your site’s blog page web site, go to your WP admin menu and choose Settings > Reading …
Configure your options in the Reading Settings screen as per the screenshot below:
How To Specify The Number Of Posts Showing On Your Home Page
If you are using your WordPress site as a blog (i.e. the default installation option), where the home page displays your most recent 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 posts that you want to display – i.e. ‘1’, ’5’, ‘7’, ’15’ etc.)
- Click the ‘Save’ button when done…
How To Specify The Number Of Posts On The Blog Page
If you are using your site as a website, where the home page displays a fixed page and your latest published post items 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 entries that you want to display – e.g. ‘1’, ’5’, ‘7’, ’12’ etc.)
- Click the Save Changes button when done …
Now, when visitors land on your site, they will see your newest blog posts showing 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 set the amount of blog post entries you want to show on the blog page of your WordPress site.
Related Posts
If you are learning how to use WordPress, you may also find the following posts useful:
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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)