You might try provisioning a server and deploying an app with a tool like [cleavr.io](https://cleavr.io](https://cleavr.io) - just sign up for the free trial with the intent to use it to help you experiment with AWS. This way, you can create a server / add a site / deploy the site in a friendly UI, and then work through the AWS console to get an idea of what was done and reverse-engineer it a bit. Might make for a more pleasant jump into the chaotic world of AWS. 😂
There are some other provider options out there. I use cleavr.io to provision / manage server and deployments and typically use Hetzner for the VPS provide - they have a new datacenter recently opened up in Virginia.
UpCloud and Vultr are some other VPS options. I've tried Oracle's free server before but had some issues with it after rebooting...
You can look into cleavr.io. You can provision your self-hosted servers (digital ocean, upcloud, vultr, linode, hetzner, etc) via cleavr and then add your Node apps and set them to automatically deploy when you push changes to your git repo. Basically, it will wipe out all of those 7 steps you're currently doing manually.
If you want to deploy to a VPS (DigitalOcean, AWS, Linode, etc) then I'd suggest using cleavr.io which provisions servers, makes them ready for Node/Nuxt, and deploys your apps. Saves you the huge hassle of setting it all up yourself.