As we’ve discussed in other posts, in a default installation, WordPress treats your website as a ‘blog’ and displays your newest posts on the home page, unless you set a specific page as the home page.
In a separate tutorial, we’ve also explained how to create a blog page to show your latest published posts.
Regardless of your choice to make your most recently published blog post entries appear on your front page or your blog page, With WordPress you can set a specific number of posts to appear on these pages (i.e. ‘1’, ’6’, ‘9’ etc.)
Your WordPress website will then display posts on your blog page up to the maximum number of blog post entries you have set, even if your site contains more posts than the number you have set to display …
The ability to set the number of posts display on your blog page has a number of uses.
For example, you can display only the latest post item that you have published. This is handy for example, if you want to send your readers to a different limited-time offer each month, a ‘deal of the day’ type of offer, publish the latest results of your sports team, post an upcoming event, set up a monthly social page for updates and announcements, etc.
You can also use this great feature to fill an empty space on your blog page if your sidebar menu is too long …
Whatever the reason may be, With WordPress you have the flexibility to change the number of posts that will display on main blog page.
In this tutorial, you are going to learn how easy it is to change how many blog posts will show up on your WordPress blog.
Specifying The Number Of Blog Posts To Display On Your WordPress Blog Page
WordPress allows you to choose how many blog posts you want listed on your blog page.
How many posts you would like to display is entirely up to you. WordPress doesn’t limit this amount …
Note: We suggest selecting a sensible setting that won’t slow down your page as the content loads on your site. You can always increase or decrease the number of posts displayed on your blog page.
To set the number of posts you want displayed on the blog page of your site, select Settings > Reading from your WordPress admin menu …
Configure your settings in the Reading Settings panel as shown in the screenshot below:
How To Change The Number Of Posts Showing On Your Home Page
If you are using your site as a blog (i.e. the default WordPress option), where the front page displays your newest published blog items, 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 post items you want showing – i.e. ‘1’, ’5’, ’10’, ’15’ etc.)
- Click the ‘Save’ button when finished…
How To Edit The Number Of Posts Displayed On Your Blog Page
If you are using your WP site as a website, where the main page is a fixed page and your newest post entries 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 entries you want to display – e.g. ‘1’, ‘3’, ‘7’, ’12’ etc.)
- Click on Save Changes when done to update your settings …
Now, when visitors land on your site, they will see posts displayed either on your home 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 published blog post entries you would like to display on the blog page.
Related Posts
If you are learning how to use WordPress, you may also find the following related posts useful:
- How To Make A WordPress Page Your Main Page
- How To Create A Blog Page To Display Your Latest Blog Post Entries
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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)