In today’s digital world, having a website is essential for any business or individual who wants to establish an online presence. With the advancement in technology, launching a website has become easier than ever, thanks to Amazon Web Services (AWS). One of the popular services provided by AWS is Amazon S3, which stands for Simple Storage Service.

Amazon S3 is a scalable object storage service that allows you to store and retrieve any amount of data from anywhere on the web. It’s a cost-effective solution for hosting static websites, such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files.

In this blog post, we will walk you through the step-by-step process of launching a static website on Amazon S3. Let’s get started!

Step 1: Create an S3 Bucket

The first step is to create an S3 bucket to store your website files. Log in to your AWS Management Console and navigate to the S3 service. Click on the ‘Create bucket’ button and provide a unique name for your bucket. Choose the region that is closest to your target audience for better performance.

Step 2: Configure Bucket Properties

Once the bucket is created, select it and go to the ‘Properties’ tab. Click on ‘Static website hosting’ and choose the ‘Use this bucket to host a website’ option. Enter the index document name, which is usually ‘index.html’. You can also specify an error document if needed.

Step 3: Upload Website Files

Now it’s time to upload your website files to the S3 bucket. Create necessary HTML/CSS/JavaScript files locally, if not already done so. Go to the ‘Overview’ tab and click on the ‘Upload’ button. Select your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files and click on ‘Upload’ to add them to your bucket. Make sure to set the appropriate permissions for the files.

Step 4: Configure Bucket Permissions

To make your website files publicly accessible, you need to configure the bucket permissions. Go to the ‘Permissions’ tab and click on ‘Bucket Policy’. Enter the following policy, replacing “your-bucket-name” with your bucket name:

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Sid": "PublicReadGetObject",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Principal": "*",
      "Action": [
        "s3:GetObject"
      ],
      "Resource": [
        "arn:aws:s3:::your-bucket-name/*"
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Step 5: Test Your Website

Once the bucket permissions are set, you can test your website by accessing the endpoint URL provided in the ‘Static website hosting’ section. Open a web browser and enter the URL to see if your website is live.

That’s it! You have successfully launched a static website on Amazon S3. Now you can share your website with the world and enjoy the benefits of AWS scalability and reliability.