As we’ve discussed in previous posts, in a default installation, WordPress treats your site as a ‘blog’ and displays your latest published entries on the home page, unless you specify a page as your main page.
In another post, we also explain how to create a blog page to display your most recent blog post entries.
Whether you choose to make blog post entries on your home page or your blog page, you can specify the number of blog post entries to display on these pages (i.e. ’2’, ’6’, ’15’ etc.)
Your WordPress site will then display blog posts on your blog page up to the maximum number of blog post entries you have set, even if your website contains more blog posts than the number of posts set to display …
Being able to specify how many posts can display on your site can be useful.
For example, you can display only the most recent post item that you have published. This can be handy, if, for example, you want to promote a different time-sensitive offer each month, a ’book of the month’ type of offer, publish the latest results of a local sports competition, post an upcoming event, set up a quarterly social page for updates and announcements, etc.
Or, you can use this great feature to fill an ugly space on your blog page 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 main blog page.
In this step-by-step tutorial, you are going to learn how easy it is to specify the number of posts will display on your WordPress blog.
Specifying The Number Of Post Entries To Display On Your WordPress Blog Page
WordPress allows you to specify how many posts you would like to show on the blog page of your website.
How many blog posts you want to display is completely up to you. WordPress doesn’t limit this number …
Note: We recommend choosing a sensible setting that won’t overload your page as the entries load on your site. You can always raise or lower the amount of items displayed on your blog page.
To set the number of posts you would like displayed on the blog page of your web site, go to the WordPress dashboard menu and select Settings > Reading …
Configure your settings in the Reading Settings screen as per the screenshot below:
How To Edit The Number Of Posts Showing On The Main Page
If you are using your WP site as a blog (i.e. the default installation 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 posts that you want showing – e.g. ‘1’, ‘3’, ’10’, ’12’ etc.)
- Click on Save Changes when done…
Specifying 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 newest posts display 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 post entries you want to display – e.g. ‘1’, ’5’, ’10’, ’12’ etc.)
- Click on Save Changes when done …
Now, when visitors come to your website, they will see your most recently published posts showing either on your home 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 number of published posts you would like listed on the blog page.
Related Posts
If you are learning how to use WordPress, you may also find the following topic-related posts useful:
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