As we’ve discussed in other posts, in a default installation, WordPress treats your site as a ‘blog’ and displays your most recent published entries on the home page, unless you set a specific page as the main page.
In a separate tutorial, we also address how to create a WordPress blog page to show your latest blog posts.
Regardless of your choice to make recently published content appear on your front page or your blog page, WordPress lets you set a specific number of blog post entries to show on these pages (e.g. ’2’, ’6’, ’12’ etc.)
Your website will then display blog post entries on your blog page up to the maximum number of posts you have set, even if your WP website or blog contains more posts than the number set to display …
The ability to specify how many blog posts can display on your WordPress site has a number of uses.
For example, you can set your blog to display only the most recent entry 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 your sports team, post upcoming events, set up a monthly community page for updates and 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, WordPress gives you the flexibility to specify the number of blog posts that will display on your blog page.
In this tutorial, you are going to learn how easy it is to change the number of blog posts to show on your site’s blog page.
Setting The Number Of Post Entries To Display On Your WordPress Blog
WordPress allows you to specify how many published blog post entries you would like listed on your website’s blog page.
The number of blog posts you would like displayed is entirely up to you. there is no limit to this number …
Note: Pick a sensible setting that won’t slow down your page as the content loads on your site. You can always raise or lower the number of posts displayed on your blog page.
To specify the number of posts you would like to have displaying on your website’s blog page web site, go to your WP dashboard menu and select Settings > Reading …
Configure the options in the Reading Settings page as per the screenshot below:
How To Edit The Number Of Posts Showing On Your Main Page
If you are using your WordPress site as a blog (i.e. the default WordPress option), where the home page displays your latest post entries, 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 blog posts that you want displayed – e.g. ‘1’, ’5’, ‘7’, ’12’ etc.)
- Click the Save Changes button when finished…
Modifying The Number Of Posts On Your Blog Page
If you are using your WP site as a website, where the front page displays a fixed page and your latest post entries show up on a separate blog page, then set your options 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 posts you want to display – i.e. ‘1’, ’5’, ’10’, ’12’ etc.)
- Click on Save Changes when finished …
Now, when visitors land on your site, they will see posts displayed 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 change the number of published blog post entries you would like to have displaying on the blog page of your web site.
Related Posts
If you are learning how to use WordPress, you may also find the following posts useful:
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