As we’ve discussed in other posts, in a default installation, WordPress treats your website as a ‘blog’ and shows your most recent posts on the main page, unless you fix a page as a home page.
In a previously published post, we also show you how to create a blog page to display your most recent published content.
Regardless of your choice to have blog post entries on your main page or your blog page, you can specify the number of items to show up on these pages (e.g. ’2’, ’4’, ‘9’ etc.)
Your WP website will then display your most recently published post entries on your blog page up to the maximum number of items you have specified, even if your WP website or blog contains more blog posts than the number of items set to display …
Being able to specify how many post items can display on your site has a number of uses.
For example, you can display only the most recent post item that you have published. This can be handy, if, for example, you promote a weekly special, a ‘deal of the day’ type of offer, publish the latest results of your sports team, post an upcoming event, set up a monthly team page for announcements, etc.
Or, you can use this great 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 specify the number of blog posts that you want to display on your blog page.
Let’s show you, then, how to change the number of blog posts will show on your site’s blog page.
How To Set The Number Of Posts To Display On Your WordPress Blog
Through its content management system (CMS), WordPress lets you specify how many blog post entries you want listed on your website’s blog page.
How many blog posts you want displayed is completely up to you. there is no limit to this number …
Note: Select a sensible setting that won’t slow down your page as the content loads on your site. You can always raise or lower the number of posts displayed.
To set the number of blog post entries you want to have displaying on the blog page site, choose Settings > Reading from the WP admin menu …
Configure the settings in the Reading Settings panel as shown in the screenshot below:
Editing The Number Of Posts Displayed 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 most recent blog posts, 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 to display – e.g. ‘1’, ’5’, ’10’, ’15’ etc.)
- Click the Save Changes button when done to update your settings…
How To Specify The Number Of Posts Showing On The Blog Page
If you are using your site as a website, where the main page is a fixed page and your most recent posts show up on a separate blog page, then edit your settings 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 showing – i.e. ‘1’, ’5’, ‘7’, ’12’ etc.)
- Click the ‘Save’ button when done …
Now, when visitors land on your site, they will see blog 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 change the amount of published blog post entries you want to show on the blog page.
Related Posts
If you are a new WordPress user, you may also find the following related posts useful:
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