As we’ve discussed in other posts, in a default installation, WordPress treats your site as a ‘blog’ and displays your latest post entries on the main page, unless you set a specific page as a main page.
In a previously published post, we have also covered how to create a blog page to show your latest published articles.
Regardless of your choice to make recently published content appear on your front page or your blog page, WordPress lets you specify the number of blog posts to display on these pages (i.e. ‘1’, ‘3’, ’15’ etc.)
Your site will then display your latest blog posts on your blog page up to the maximum number of items you have specified, even if your website or blog contains more blog posts than the number set to display …
Having the ability to set the number of entries display on your blog page can be useful.
For example, you can set your blog to display only the latest post item that you have published. This can be useful, if, for example, you want to send your readers to a weekly special, a ’book of the month’ type of offer, publish the latest results of a local sports competition, post upcoming events, set up a weekly social page for announcements, etc.
Or, you can use this feature to fill an ugly space on your blog if your sidebar menu is too long …
Whatever the reason may be, WordPress gives you the flexibility to set the number of posts to display on your blog page.
In this step-by-step tutorial, you are going to learn how to change how many blog posts will show up on your blog.
Changing The Number Of Post Entries To Display On Your Blog Page
WordPress allows you to specify how many published posts you would like to have showing on your website’s blog page.
How many posts you want displayed is completely up to you. WordPress doesn’t limit this amount …
Note: Select 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 posts displayed.
To specify the number of posts you would like displayed on your website’s blog page web site, go to your WP dashboard menu and select Settings > Reading …
Configure your settings in the Reading Settings screen as per the screenshot below:
How To Specify The Number Of Posts On The Home Page
If you are using your site as a blog (i.e. the default WordPress option), where the home page shows your newest published blog items, 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 blog post entries that you want to display – e.g. ‘1’, ‘3’, ‘7’, ’15’ etc.)
- Click on Save Changes when finished to update your settings…
How To Specify The Number Of Posts Displayed On The Blog Page
If you are using your WP site as a website, where the home page shows a fixed page and your most recent posts 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 items that you want to display – e.g. ‘1’, ’5’, ’10’, ’12’ etc.)
- Click on Save Changes when finished to update your settings …
Now, when visitors come to your website, they will see recently published post entries displayed 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 change the number of posts you would like to have showing on the blog page of your website.
Related Posts
If you are learning how to use WordPress, you may also find the following posts useful:
- How To Make A Page Of Your Choice Be The Home Page Of Your WordPress Site
- How To Create A Blog Page In WordPress
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum