Ashley Qualls is a perfect example of how effective “word of mouth” advertising can still be in the business world.

Ashley launched a website called WhateverLife.com in 2004, at the mere age of 14. She had a couple years experience learning how to use HTML, and the site was her way of displaying her impressive design skills.

The site had been up for a while and the visitor clock pretty much sat at 0. That is, until the day she offered to customize the layout of her school friend’s MySpace page for her… and then another class mate’s, and another’s, and another’s.

Less than a year after Ashley initially launched WhateverLife.com, the traffic through her site was in the thousands and numerous people were contacting her seeking some awesome designs for their MySpace or other pages.

Clever little Ashley decided to sign up for Google’s Adsense system, and so she started receiving profits every time someone clicked on one of the ads displayed on her website.

Needless to say, the offers to buy her out kept rolling in – one of which included $1.5 million and any car she wanted (so long as it was under $100,000).

It might be hard to believe that a 15-year-old could turn down that kind of offer, but Ashley has turned down every single offer to date, buying a $250,000 Michigan home the very next year and now her website attracts about 7 million visitors a month.

She paid $8 for the site’s domain name in 2004, and so far that is all the website has ever cost her.