---
id: version-1.9.x-site-creation
title: Creating your site
original_id: site-creation
---
Docusaurus was created to hopefully make it super simple for you to create a site and documentation for your open source project.
After [installation](getting-started-installation.md) and [preparation](getting-started-preparation.md), much of the work to create a basic site for your docs is already complete.
## Site Structure
Your site structure looks like the following:
```bash
root-directory
├── docs
└── website
├── blog
├── core
│ └── Footer.js
├── package.json
├── pages
├── sidebars.json
├── siteConfig.js
└── static
```
> This assumes that you removed the example `.md` files that were installed with the [initialization](getting-started-installation.md) script.
All of your documentation files should be placed inside the `docs` directory as markdown `.md` files. Any blog posts should be inside the `blog` directory.
> The blog posts must be formatted as `YYYY-MM-DD-your-file-name.md`
## Create Your Basic Site
To create a fully functional site, you only need to do a few steps:
1. Add your documentation to the `/docs` directory as `.md` files, ensuring you have the proper [header](api-doc-markdown.md#documents) in each file. One example header would be the following, where `id` is the link name (e.g., `docs/intro.html`) and the `title` is the webpage's title.
```yaml
---
id: intro
title: Getting Started
---
My new content here..
```
1. Add zero or more docs to the [`sidebars.json`](guides-navigation.md#adding-docs-to-a-sidebar) file so that your documentation is rendered in a sidebar, if you choose them to be.
> If you do not add your documentation to the `sidebars.json` file, the docs will be rendered, but they can only be linked to from other documentation and visited with the known URL.
3. Modify the `website/siteConfig.js` file to [configure your site](api-site-config.md), following the comments included in the [docs](api-site-config.md) and the `website/siteConfig.js` to guide you.
1. Create any [custom pages](guides-custom-pages.md#customizing-your-site-footer) and/or [customize](guides-custom-pages.md#customizing-your-site-footer) the `website/core/Footer.js` file that provides the footer for your site.
1. Place assets, such as images, in the `website/static/` directory.
1. Run the site to see the results of your changes.
```bash
cd website
yarn run start # or `npm run start`
# Navigate to http://localhost:3000
```
## Special Customization
### Docs Landing Page
If you prefer to have your landing page be straight to your documentation, you can do this through a redirect.
1. Remove the `index.js` file from the `website/pages` directory, if it exists.
1. Add a [custom static `index.html` page](guides-custom-pages.md#adding-static-pages) in the `website/static` directory with the following contents:
```html
Your Site Title Here
If you are not redirected automatically, follow this
link.
```
> You will get the `id` of the document to land on the `.md` metadata of that doc page.
### Blog Only
You can also use Docusaurus to host your [blog only](guides-blog.md#i-want-to-run-in-blog-only-mode).