As we’ve discussed in previous posts, in a default installation, WordPress treats your website as a ‘blog’ and displays your latest posts on the home page, unless you specify a page as a main page.
In a separate article, we also show you how to create a blog page to show your latest published posts.
Whether you choose to have posts on your front page or your blog page, you can set a specific number of items to display on these pages (e.g. ‘1’, ’6’, ’15’ etc.)
Your WordPress website will then display recently published post entries on your blog page up to the maximum number of posts you have specified, even if your WP website contains more blog posts than the number of posts you have set to display …
The ability to specify how many post items will display on your web site can be useful.
For example, you can display only the latest single post item that you have published. This is useful, if, for example, you want to send your readers to a different time-sensitive offer each month, a ‘deal of the day’ type of offer, publish the latest results of a local sports competition, post upcoming events, set up a quarterly office page for updates and 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 may be, WordPress gives you the flexibility to specify the number of posts that will display on your blog page.
Let’s show you, then, how to easily set how many posts you want to display on your blog.
How To Specify The Number Of Posts To Display On Your Blog
Through its content management system (CMS), WordPress allows you to choose how many blog posts you want to have showing on the blog page of your website.
How many posts you want to display is entirely up to you. WordPress doesn’t limit this number …
Note: We suggest choosing a sensible setting that won’t slow down your page as the content loads on your site. You can always increase or decrease the number of posts displayed.
To set the number of blog post entries you want listed on the blog page website, go to the WordPress admin menu and select Settings > Reading …
Configure the settings in the Reading Settings page as shown in the screenshot below:
Specifying The Number Of Posts Displayed On The Front Page
If you are using your site as a blog (i.e. the default installation option), where the front page shows your newest posts, then set your options 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 you want displayed – i.e. ‘1’, ’5’, ‘7’, ’12’ etc.)
- Click on Save Changes when done…
How To Specify The Number Of Posts Showing On Your Blog Page
If you are using your site as a website, where the home page displays a fixed page and your most recent post entries display 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 items that you want showing – e.g. ‘1’, ‘3’, ‘7’, ’12’ etc.)
- Click the ‘Save’ button when finished …
Now, when visitors land on your site, they will see your most recent published articles 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:
Congratulations! Now you know how to change the number of published blog posts you want displayed on the blog page of your WordPress site.
Related Posts
If you are new to WordPress, you may also find the following topic-related posts useful:
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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