As we’ve discussed in previous posts, by default, WordPress treats your website as a ‘blog’ and shows your most recent blog posts on the home page, unless you specify a page as the main page.
In a separate article, we also address how to create a blog page to display your most recent blog post entries.
Regardless of your choice to have blog posts on your home page or your blog page, WordPress lets you specify the number of posts to show on these pages (e.g. ‘1’, ’5’, ’12’ etc.)
Your WordPress website will then display posts on your blog page up to the maximum number of blog posts you have set, even if your WP web site contains more posts than the number you have set to display …
The ability to set how many blog posts can display on your WordPress site has a number of practical applications.
For example, you can display only the latest single entry that you have published. This can be handy, if, for example, you 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 quarterly corporate page for updates and announcements, etc.
Or, you can 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 change the number of posts that will show on your blog page.
In this tutorial, you are going to learn how easy it is to specify how many blog posts to display on your WordPress blog.
Setting The Number Of Blog Posts To Display On Your Blog Page
WordPress allows you to choose how many posts you would like to have showing on your website’s blog page.
How many posts you would like to display is entirely up to you. there is no limit to this amount …
Note: We recommend that you choose a sensible setting that won’t slow down your page as the content loads on your site. You can always raise or lower the amount of posts displayed on your blog page.
To specify the number of published blog posts you want to display on the blog page of your WordPress website, select Settings > Reading from your WP navigation menu …
Configure your options in the Reading Settings screen as shown in the screenshot below:
Editing The Number Of Posts Showing On Your Front Page
If you are using your WordPress site as a blog (i.e. the default installation option), where the main page displays your newest 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 post items that you want to display – e.g. ‘1’, ‘3’, ‘7’, ’12’ etc.)
- Click the ‘Save’ button when done to update your settings…
Specifying The Number Of Posts On The Blog Page
If you are using your WP site as a website, where the main page shows a fixed page and your newest posts show up on a separate blog page, then edit your settings 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 items you want to display – e.g. ‘1’, ‘3’, ’10’, ’12’ etc.)
- Click on Save Changes when done …
Now, when visitors come to your website, they will see your latest 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 set the number of published blog post entries you want to have displaying on your site’s blog page.
Related Posts
If you are a new WordPress user, you may also find the following posts useful:
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now