As we’ve discussed in other posts, by default, WordPress treats your site as a ‘blog’ and shows your latest published posts on the home page, unless you specify a page as the front page.
In another post, we’ve also addressed how to create a blog page to display your latest published articles.
Whether you choose to make recently published content show up on your home page or your blog page, WordPress lets you specify the number of posts to appear on these pages (i.e. ‘1’, ’5’, ‘9’ etc.)
Your WordPress website will then display blog 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 of posts you have set to display …
Being able to set how many entries will display on your WordPress site has a number of practical uses.
For example, you can display only the latest single post item that you have published. This is useful for example, if you are promoting a weekly special, a ’book of the month’ type of offer, publish the latest results of your sports team, post upcoming events, set up a weekly team page for updates and announcements, etc.
You can also use this great feature to fill an empty space on your blog if your sidebar menu is too long …
Whatever the reason, WordPress gives you the flexibility to specify the number of posts that will show on your blog page.
In this tutorial, you are going to learn how to easily change how many blog posts to show up on your site’s blog page.
Setting The Number Of Blog Posts Displayed On Your Blog
Through its content management system (CMS), WordPress allows you to choose how many blog post entries you would like listed on the blog page of your website.
The number of blog posts you want to display is completely up to you. WordPress doesn’t limit this amount …
Note: We suggest selecting 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 on your blog page.
To set the number of published blog post entries you would like to have displaying on your website’s blog page web site, click on Settings > Reading from your WP navigation menu …
Configure your options in the Reading Settings panel as per the screenshot below:
How To Specify The Number Of Posts On Your Main Page
If you are using your site as a blog (i.e. the default WordPress option), where the front page displays your newest posts, then edit your settings 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 post entries that you want to show – i.e. ‘1’, ’5’, ’10’, ’15’ etc.)
- Click on Save Changes when done…
To Modify The Number Of Posts Showing On Your Blog Page
If you are using your site as a website, where the front page shows a fixed page and your newest post entries 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 blog post entries that you want to display – e.g. ‘1’, ’5’, ’10’, ’15’ etc.)
- Click the Save Changes button when done …
Now, when visitors come to your site, they will see recently published articles showing either on your main 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 amount of blog post entries you want listed on your website’s blog page.
Related Posts
If you are a new WordPress user, you may also find the following topic-related posts useful:
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)