As we’ve discussed in other posts, in a default installation, WordPress treats your site as a ‘blog’ and shows your latest post entries on the front page, unless you fix a page as the front page.

In a previous article, we have also explained how to create a blog page to display your latest published entries.

Regardless of your choice to make your most recently published content appear on your front page or your blog page, With WordPress you can specify the number of items to display on these pages (i.e. ’2’, ’7’, ’12’ etc.)

Your WP site will then display recently published blog post entries on your blog page up to the maximum number of blog post entries you have set, even if your WP site contains more blog posts than the number of items you have set to display …

Being able to set the number of entries will display on your site has a number of practical uses.

For example, you can set your blog to display only the latest single entry you have published. This can be handy, if, for example, you promote a weekly special, a ’book of the month’ type of offer, publish the latest results of a local sports competition, post an upcoming event, set up a monthly social page for updates and announcements, etc.

You can also use this feature to fill an ugly space on your blog page if your sidebar menu runs too long …

Whatever the reason may be, With WordPress you have the flexibility to set the number of blog posts to display on main blog page.

Let’s show you, then, how to set how many blog posts you want to display on your WordPress blog.

How To Specify The Number Of Blog Posts To Display On Your WordPress Blog Page

Through its content management system (CMS), WordPress lets you specify how many blog posts you want displayed on your site’s blog page.

How many blog posts you want displayed is completely up to you. WordPress doesn’t limit this number …

Note: We recommend that you choose 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 items displayed on your blog page.

To set how many published blog post entries you would like to have displaying on your website’s blog page website, choose Settings > Reading from your WP admin menu …

Configure the settings in the Reading Settings panel as shown in the screenshot below:

Changing The Number Of Posts On The Front Page

If you are using your WP site as a blog (i.e. the default installation option), where the home page displays your newest posts, then edit your settings as described below:

1. Front page displays: Set this to Your latest posts
2. Blog pages show at most: X posts (where ‘X’ is the number of post entries you want to display – i.e. ‘1’, ’5’, ’10’, ’12’ etc.)
3. Click the ‘Save’ button when finished…

Editing The Number Of Posts Showing On Your Blog Page

If you are using your site as a website, where the main page displays a fixed page and your newest post entries display on a separate blog page, then set your options as shown below:

1. Front page displays: Set this to A static page, then select Posts page: > your Blog Page from the drop down menu
2. Blog pages show at most: X posts X posts (where ‘X’ is the number of posts that you want displayed – e.g. ‘1’, ‘3’, ‘7’, ’15’ etc.)
3. Click on Save Changes when finished to update your settings …

Now, when visitors come to your site, they will see recently published blog post entries displayed either on your home page or blog page, up to the maximum number of posts you have specified …

To learn how to change the length of your post excerpts, see the tutorial below:

• How To Use WordPress Post Excerpts And Post Previews

Congratulations! Now you know how to change the amount of published blog post entries you would like to have showing on the blog page of your site.

Related Posts

If you are a new WordPress user, you may also find the following related posts useful:

• How To Make A WordPress Page Your Front Page
• How To Create A Blog Page To Display Your Latest Blog Posts

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