As we’ve discussed in other posts, by default, WordPress treats your website as a ‘blog’ and shows your newest post entries on the home page, unless you specify a page as a static front page.

In a previous tutorial, we’ve also shown you how to create a blog page to display your most recent post.
Whether you choose to make posts on your main page or your blog page, WordPress lets you set a specific number of blog post entries to appear on these pages (i.e. ’2’, ’7’, ’12’ etc.)
Your website will then display posts on your blog page up to the maximum number of items you have set, even if your web site contains more blog posts than the number set to display …

Having the ability to specify the number of entries will display on your WordPress site is useful.
For example, you can set your blog to display only the latest single post that you have published. This can be handy, if, for example, you are promoting 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 weekly social page for announcements, etc.
Or, you can use this great feature to fill an empty space on your blog page if your sidebar menu runs too long …

Whatever the reason, With WordPress you have the flexibility to set the number of blog posts to display on main blog page.
In this tutorial, you are going to learn how easy it is to set how many blog posts will show on your blog page.
How To Change The Number Of Blog Posts Displayed On Your WordPress Blog Page
Through its content management system (CMS), WordPress allows you to choose how many published blog posts you would like to display on the blog page of your web site.
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How many posts you want to display is entirely up to you. WordPress doesn’t limit this amount …

Note: Pick a sensible setting that won’t slow down your page as the entries load on your site. You can always raise or lower the amount of posts displayed on your blog page.
To set how many blog post entries you want to have displaying on the blog page web site, choose Settings > Reading from your WP dashboard menu …

Configure your options in the Reading Settings screen as shown below:
Modifying The Number Of Posts Displayed On The Main Page
If you are using your site as a blog (i.e. the default WordPress option), where the front page displays your latest posts, then edit your settings as shown below:
- Front page displays: Set this to Your latest posts
- Blog pages show at most: X posts (where ‘X’ is the number of post entries that you want to show – e.g. ‘1’, ’5’, ‘7’, ’12’ etc.)
- Click on Save Changes when done…

Editing The Number Of Posts Showing On Your Blog Page
If you are using your site as a website, where the main page shows a fixed page and your latest blog posts show up on a separate blog page, then edit your settings as described 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 that you want showing – e.g. ‘1’, ‘3’, ‘7’, ’15’ etc.)
- Click on Save Changes when finished …

Now, when visitors land on your website, they will see recently published content showing either on your main page or blog page, up to the maximum number of posts you have specified …

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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 blog post entries you would like to have displaying on the blog page of your website.
Related Posts
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group