What Features Required For This Simple Site?

[AllenChicago]

Greetings Colleagues,

I've been in insurance sales for many years, but am starting to get tired of spending so many hours on the road here in Northern Illinois doing one-on-one sales calls.

As most of you know, many of the insurance companies we contract with provide us with personalized sign-up links that we can "embed" in a website.

I want to set up a website (or blog or webzine site?) where I can type a description of the product and immediately above that description, have a photo, image, etc, that the visitor can click on that will take him/her to the desired external site.

Google News is the site that comes to mind as what I would like to mimic. You click on a story of interest and you're taken completely off-site to the source of that story. But instead of news, I'll be promoting insurance and non-insurance products. Of course, the page will be static for the most part...not constantly updated like a news site.

OK..having said all that, here's my problem. I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO LOOK FOR while conducting research into the various web-builder / blog-builder providers. There's not many of them that get great ratings, but each of the few top-rated providers offer at least 4 levels of upgrades.

What specific features, functions, capabilities should I look for in order publish a (simple?) single-page site with Images and hyperlinks to other sites?

A HUGE thanks to anyone that can help guide me out of this frustration!

-Allen in Chicago

 

[ksigmtsu]

I know you can do it, but one issue is that you'd be violating terms of use for the pictures, some pictures available online aren't licensed to reuse in that manner.

The only software I know of that automates it is 1500$, and is currently not available as they hit their server capacity.

 

[AllenChicago]

Ksigmtsu,
Thanks for replying and for your insight. I found a site that will do what is needed. It's called SquareSpace and is simple and inexpensive. The support person says that their basic level has a 30 day free-trial and would be a good "landing page", which is what I'm looking for.

It's a STEEEP learning curve for me, but I'll figure it out. After what my audiologist has told me, I'll have to sell online, or not at all.

As you suggested, I'll be careful with the images. Thanks again!

-Allen

 

[ksigmtsu]

Ah i didn't realise you were looking for a framework designer.

There are some other free options out there for that, Drupal comes to mind, or Yii.

I want to say off the top of my head that drupal is the easiest one to use that is freely available, its a branch of wordpress.
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That site does look cool though, I'm just one of those people who would rather get free things if the free things are in the same league as something I have to pay for.

 

[AllenChicago]

Drupal? Since I haven't started the SquareSpace project yet, I'll check out Drupal tonight. Have a great week Ksigmtsu!
-AC