As we’ve discussed in previous posts, in a default installation, WordPress treats your website as a ‘blog’ and displays your most recent published posts on the main page, unless you fix a page as a front page.
In a previously published tutorial, we also explain how to create a WordPress blog page to display your latest published posts.
Regardless of your choice to have display posts on your home page or your blog page, WordPress lets you set a specific number of published posts to display on these pages (e.g. ‘1’, ’5’, ‘9’ etc.)
Your WP website will then display blog post entries on your blog page up to the maximum number of items you have specified, even if your WP website contains more blog posts than the number set to display …
Having the ability to specify the number of blog post items can display on your site has a number of uses.
For example, you can display only the most recent blog post you have published. This is useful for example, if you want to send your readers to a weekly special, a ‘deal of the day’ type of offer, publish the latest results of a local sports competition, post an upcoming event, set up a monthly community page for announcements, etc.
You can also use this great 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 that you want to show on main blog page.
In this tutorial, you are going to learn how to change how many posts you want to show on your WordPress blog.
Setting The Number Of Blog Post Entries To Display On Your WordPress Blog Page
WordPress lets you choose how many blog post entries you would like displayed on your website’s blog page.
How many entries you would like 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 increase or decrease the amount of posts displayed on your blog page.
To specify the number of posts you want to have showing on the blog page site, go to your WordPress dashboard menu and select Settings > Reading …
Configure the settings in the Reading Settings page as shown in the screenshot below:
Modifying The Number Of Posts Showing On The Main Page
If you are using your WP site as a blog (i.e. the default installation option), where the home page shows your latest published content, 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 blog post items you want to display – i.e. ‘1’, ’5’, ‘7’, ’12’ etc.)
- Click the ‘Save’ button when done…
How To Modify The Number Of Posts Showing On Your Blog Page
If you are using your site as a website, where the front page displays a fixed page and your latest blog 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 blog post items you want to show – i.e. ‘1’, ’5’, ‘7’, ’12’ etc.)
- Click on Save Changes when done …
Now, when visitors land on your site, they will see posts showing 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 would like listed on the blog page of your website.
Related Posts
If you are a new WordPress user, you may also find the following topic-related posts useful:
- How To Show A Specific Page As The Home Page Of Your WordPress Site
- How To Create A Blog Page To Display Your Latest Blog Post Entries
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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