For years now I've been looking to start my own business, but my highest priority has always been to spend less time working, and more time with my family, while still giving them everything they need (and most of what they want). It's a common dream, right? No boss to answer to, less stress, more vacation, more quality family time... I wanted to get away from the 9 to 5 and the traffic. (I bet you do, too.)

So, I started to research various business opportunities. I looked into franchises of all sorts, but the money I had to invest upfront was way too much (thousands of dollars, at a minimum), which made the idea too risky - I couldn't risk my family's financial well-being on a dream of mine. I was even close to falling for various MLM schemes. Luckily I never made it that far. When the Internet became more and more prominent in, well, society in general, it just became something I couldn't ignore anymore. So I did some more research, this time on creating a website. I began to like the idea, for many reasons:

1. I could start it with little $ invested (so, hardly any risk)

2. I could start it while I was still in my 9 to 5 job (again, no burden on my family financially)

3. I could choose the subject of the website (and focus on something that I enjoyed)

It was then that I decided to use choosing gifts (something I enjoy) as the basis for my site. But then I had to figure out exactly HOW to create it. There's a lot involved (much that I didn't know at the start): domain registration, hosting, page creation, search engine submission, keywords, titles, descriptions, site promotion... whew! At first it seemed like way too much to handle, and with the massive amounts of websites out there (60 million and counting) I feared my site would just get lost in the crowd (so what's the point). I almost gave up the idea altogether.

But through perserverance and a little luck in finding the right tools to teach me what to do, and when to do it, I've been able to create a successful website. In 6 months my site's traffic ranking is in the top 1% of all websites!

I'm thrilled about what the future might hold! Have I quit my day job? No, not yet... I want to pay off my debt first. You know... the "American Way" of falling into debt with credit cards and loans - even though I live in Canada. :) My family and I will have our debt paid off by Christmas 2005 - then I can consider quitting the 9 to 5 routine.

If you are like me and you want to start a website... no,... start a business... and change your future, I encourage you to get out there and do it. You owe it to yourself to at least check it out.

For more information about The-Gift-Wizard.com and the tools I used to create it, feel free to visit: http://www.the-gift-wizard.com/website.html or contact me at http://www.the-gift-wizard.com/contact-the-gift-wizard.html. I'll be glad to answer any questions you might have.

Best of luck!

A Heath is a gift researcher for http://www.the-gift-wizard.com