As we’ve discussed in previous posts, by default, WordPress treats your site as a ‘blog’ and shows your newest posts on the home page, unless you set a specific page as a home page.
In a separate tutorial, we also explain how to create a blog page to display your latest post.
Regardless of your choice to make your blog posts on your front page or your blog page, WordPress lets you specify the number of posts to appear on these pages (i.e. ’2’, ’4’, ’15’ etc.)
Your website will then display recently published posts on your blog page up to the maximum number of blog post entries you have set, even if your WP website or blog contains more blog posts than the number of items you have set to display …
The ability to specify the number of blog post items will display on your site has a number of practical uses.
For example, you can display only the latest single entry that you have published. This can be handy, if, for example, 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 quarterly social page for announcements, etc.
Or, you can use this feature to fill an empty space on your blog if your sidebar menu is too long …
Whatever the reason may be, With WordPress you have the flexibility to set the number of posts that you want to display on your blog page.
In this step-by-step tutorial, you are going to learn how to easily change how many blog posts will show on your blog.
How To Specify The Number Of Posts To Display On Your WordPress Blog Page
WordPress lets you choose how many posts you would like to show on the blog page of your site.
How many blog posts you would like to display is entirely up to you. there is no limit to this number …
Note: We suggest that you choose a sensible setting that won’t slow down your page as the entries load on your site. You can always increase or decrease the number of posts displayed.
To specify how many published posts you would like displayed on your site’s blog page web site, choose Settings > Reading from the WordPress dashboard menu …
Configure your options in the Reading Settings page as per the screenshot below:
Editing The Number Of Posts Displayed On The Front Page
If you are using your WordPress site as a blog (i.e. the default installation option), where the main 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 items you want to display – i.e. ‘1’, ‘3’, ’10’, ’12’ etc.)
- Click the Save Changes button when finished to update your settings…
Specifying The Number Of Posts On Your Blog Page
If you are using your WP site as a website, where the front page shows a fixed page and your most recent post entries show up 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 posts that you want to display – i.e. ‘1’, ’5’, ’10’, ’15’ etc.)
- Click on Save Changes when done …
Now, when visitors come to your website, they will see blog post entries showing either on your front 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:
Congratulations! Now you know how to set the number of published blog posts you want to display on the blog page of your website.
Related Posts
If you are learning how to use WordPress, you may also find the following topic-related posts useful:
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