As we’ve discussed in other posts, by default, WordPress treats your website as a ‘blog’ and shows your newest blog posts on the front page, unless you set a specific page as your home page.
In a separate tutorial, we also discuss how to create a WordPress blog page to show your latest published entries.
Whether you choose to have display your most recently published content on your main page or your blog page, WordPress lets you set a specific number of blog posts to show up on these pages (i.e. ‘1’, ’7’, ’12’ etc.)
Your WP site will then display blog posts on your blog page up to the maximum number of posts you have specified, even if your web site contains more posts than the number of posts set to display …
The ability to specify how many blog posts display on your site has a number of uses.
For example, you can set your blog to display only the latest single blog post item that you have published. This can be handy, if, for example, you promote a weekly special, a ’book of the month’ type of offer, publish the latest results of a local sports competition, post an upcoming event, set up a monthly social 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, With WordPress you have the flexibility to change the number of posts that will show on main blog page.
Let’s show you, then, how to change how many posts to show up on your WordPress blog.
Specifying The Number Of Posts Displayed On Your Blog
WordPress lets you choose how many published blog post entries you would like to show on the blog page of your site.
How many entries you would like displayed is entirely up to you. WordPress doesn’t limit this number …
Note: Pick a sensible setting that won’t overload your page as the content loads on your site. You can always raise or lower the amount of items displayed.
To set the number of posts you want to display on the blog page of your WP site, choose Settings > Reading from the WP navigation menu …
Configure the options in the Reading Settings screen as per the screenshot below:
Modifying The Number Of Posts Displayed On The Home Page
If you are using your site as a blog (i.e. the default WordPress option), where the front page shows your most recent published content, 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 post items that you want to show – e.g. ‘1’, ’5’, ‘7’, ’12’ etc.)
- Click the Save Changes button when done…
Specifying The Number Of Posts Displayed On The Blog Page
If you are using your site as a website, where the front page shows a fixed page and your latest posts display 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 post items that you want displayed – i.e. ‘1’, ’5’, ‘7’, ’15’ etc.)
- Click on Save Changes when finished …
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 amount of posts you would like to have showing on the blog page of your site.
Related Posts
If you are new to WordPress, you may also find the following topic-related posts useful:
***
"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)