As we’ve discussed in previous posts, by default, WordPress treats your site as a ‘blog’ and shows your newest blog posts on the front page, unless you specify a page as your front page.
In a previous article, we also show you how to create a blog page to display your latest published entries.
Regardless of your choice to make your most recent published articles on your main page or your blog page, With WordPress you can set a specific number of blog post entries to appear on these pages (e.g. ‘1’, ’4’, ’12’ etc.)
Your site will then display your latest blog posts on your blog page up to the maximum number of blog post entries you have specified, even if your WordPress site contains more blog posts than the number of items you have set to display …
Being able to specify how many post items can display on your WordPress site has a number of practical uses.
For example, you can set your blog to display only the latest single blog post that you have published. This is useful for example, if you want to promote a different expiring offer each month, a ’book of the month’ type of offer, publish the latest results of a local sports competition, post an upcoming event, set up a weekly corporate page for announcements, etc.
You can also use this feature to fill an empty space on your blog if your sidebar menu is too long …
Whatever the reason, WordPress gives you the flexibility to change the number of posts that you want to show on main blog page.
Let’s show you, then, how easy it is to set how many posts will display on your WordPress blog.
Setting The Number Of Post Entries Displayed On Your Blog
Through its content management system (CMS), WordPress lets you specify how many published blog posts you want listed on the blog page of your website.
The number of entries you want to display is completely up to you. WordPress doesn’t limit this amount …
Note: We recommend that you choose a sensible setting that won’t overload your page as the content loads on your site. You can always raise or lower the amount of items displayed.
To specify the number of published blog posts you want to have displaying on your site’s blog page site, choose Settings > Reading from your WordPress dashboard menu …
Configure your options in the Reading Settings page as shown in the screenshot below:
Specifying The Number Of Posts Displayed On The Front Page
If you are using your WP site as a blog (i.e. the default installation option), where the home page shows your latest posts, 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 post entries you want to show – e.g. ‘1’, ’5’, ’10’, ’12’ etc.)
- Click on Save Changes when finished…
Changing The Number Of Posts On Your Blog Page
If you are using your site as a website, where the home page is a fixed page and your latest published blog content 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 post entries you want to show – i.e. ‘1’, ’5’, ‘7’, ’15’ etc.)
- Click on Save Changes when done …
Now, when visitors come to your site, they will see your newest blog posts 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 post entries you want to have displaying on your WP website’s blog page.
Related Posts
If you are new to WordPress, you may also find the following posts useful:
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