As we’ve discussed in other posts, in a default installation, WordPress treats your website as a ‘blog’ and shows your latest posts on the home page, unless you specify a page as a static home page.
In a separate post, we have also explained how to create a WordPress blog page to show your latest blog post entries.
Whether you choose to have present blog posts on your front page or your blog page, WordPress lets you set a specific number of items to show up on these pages (e.g. ’2’, ’4’, ’12’ etc.)
Your WP site will then display your newest blog posts on your blog page up to the maximum number of blog posts you have set, even if your web site contains more blog posts than the number set to display …
Being able to specify how many post items display on your web site has a number of uses.
For example, you can display only the latest entry that you have published. This can be handy for example, if you are promoting a different time-sensitive offer each week, a ’book of the month’ 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 empty space on your blog page if your sidebar menu is too long …
Whatever the reason, With WordPress you have the flexibility to change the number of blog posts that you want to show on your blog page.
Let’s show you, then, how to specify the number of posts will show up on your blog.
How To Change The Number Of Posts To Display On Your Blog Page
Through its content management system (CMS), WordPress lets you choose how many posts you want to show on your website’s blog page.
How many posts you would like displayed is entirely 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 raise or lower the number of posts displayed.
To specify the number of published blog posts you want to display on the blog page of your WordPress web site, go to the WordPress admin menu and select Settings > Reading …
Configure your options in the Reading Settings screen as shown in the screenshot below:
Modifying The Number Of Posts Showing On The Home Page
If you are using your site as a blog (i.e. the default installation option), where the main page displays your most recent published post entries, then set your options 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 items that you want to display – i.e. ‘1’, ‘3’, ‘7’, ’15’ etc.)
- Click the Save Changes button when finished…
Editing The Number Of Posts Showing On Your Blog Page
If you are using your WordPress site as a website, where the home page shows a fixed page and your newest 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 items that you want showing – e.g. ‘1’, ‘3’, ’10’, ’12’ etc.)
- Click on Save Changes when finished …
Now, when visitors land on your site, they will see your newest blog posts 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 posts you would like displayed on your website’s blog page.
Related Posts
If you are a new WordPress user, you may also find the following posts useful:
- How To Create A Static WP Home Page
- How To Create A Blog Page To Display Your Latest Post Entries In WordPress
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