External links in slider or featured page on homepage

Is there a way to point the slider image or the featured pages to external links?

For example, the first two sliders go to pages on the site, but the third slider takes you to an external site somewhere else (Google.com for example).

And in that same vein, can a “Featured Page” on the homepage point to an external link?

I’ve tried eating up a post as a “link” but it still generated an internal site page that just shows the link text. and I have links set up on the blog, but they don’t appear to be an option for navigation.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks,
Barry