Questions, answered.

UPWARD is the two of us, Cody and Holly Strate, a married couple running a small studio in Boulder, Colorado. We design and build websites, tell brand stories, shoot photography and film, and run ongoing content for reputation-first law firms, specialty medical practices, and commercial builders. Everything a firm needs to look as credible online as it is in person, from two people.

We focus on reputation-first law firms, specialty medical practices and healthcare IT, and construction. We take a small number of clients at a time on purpose, and we're candid about who we're not for: not personal injury, and not anyone who wants design by committee.

You do. Full stop. Domain, hosting, code, words, photographs: yours. This is the opposite of the legal-vendor model, and it's non-negotiable for us.

Yes. Every client on this site is referenceable. Ask us for a phone number and call them. We would rather you hear it from the people we have done the work for than take our word for anything.

On purpose, so the work gets our full attention and the quality stays high. UPWARD is the two of us, Cody and Holly Strate: we both manage every client and we both design, and there's nobody junior to hand you to. It also means we're honest about capacity, rather than taking everyone and serving no one well.

Exactly what it sounds like, and we mean it about ourselves most of all. We work with people we respect, we're candid rather than pushy, and we don't run lists, drip campaigns, or high-pressure funnels. It's a stated policy because the relationship is the product.

We price each build for the firm after a first conversation. A full build includes story, design, and real photography, and ongoing partnership runs month to month. Firms with more offices, locations, or media needs invest more. Start free with the Mirror, then go deeper with the Trust Audit: a paid, human-reviewed diagnostic that we credit in full toward your build.

Because launch day is the starting line. The results our clients brag about (AI answers naming them, updates in minutes instead of tickets) came from years of tending: content, structure, measurement, refresh. A site that's built and abandoned decays. One that's stewarded compounds.

Our paid diagnostic, priced for your firm and credited in full toward a build. It's a human-reviewed read of your visibility and trust signals with a working strategy session: where you stand, who is beating you to the referral, and what to fix first. The free Mirror is the place to decide whether the deeper read is worth it.

Yes. Partnerships are month to month. You own the site, the content, and the accounts, so leaving is clean. We keep clients by being worth keeping, and our first client is still with us.

Most firm engagements run eight to twelve weeks from first conversation to launch: story first, then design, then photography, then build. We take on a small number of clients at a time on purpose, so the work gets real attention.

Then don't rebuild it. Partnerships stand alone: we'll steward, publish, and measure on top of what you have, and tell you honestly if and when a rebuild would pay for itself.

Those platforms rent you a template and keep the keys. We build a site you own outright, tell your story to the clients you actually want, shoot real photography of your people, and stay on as a partner rather than a gatekeeper. One of our longest-standing clients came to us specifically to escape a vendor who charged them to change a phone number.

Completely. The site, the content, the photography, the accounts: all yours. We manage it for you on partnership terms because that's easier for you, not because you're locked in. You can leave anytime and take everything with you. Nobody stays hostage here.

No. Every site is designed around your story and built custom. Templates are the reason so many firms in the same field look identical and interchangeable. A custom build is also what lets us structure the site so search engines and AI answer engines can read it, which a locked template rarely allows.

Story before pixels, always. We interview you, study your best clients, and write the narrative and page-by-page story first. You approve every word of strategy before design begins. It's the opposite of an agency that hands you a pretty template and asks you to fill in the words yourself.

Articles in your voice, grounded in your actual expertise, produced with Novel Koncept, the content intelligence platform we built. You approve everything before it publishes. It's how our clients stay visible in search and AI answers without writing a word themselves.

No. Generic AI content can't buy trust, and your clients feel the difference instantly. What we produce is voice-faithful, grounded in your real expertise, and reviewed by a human, yours and ours, before it publishes. The engine gives us speed and consistency; the judgment and the approval stay human.

Yes. Senior marketing leadership is part of what we do, led by Cody, who has more than twenty years of CMO experience. For firms that want it on a continuing basis, it lives inside an ongoing partnership rather than a one-off project. We'll help you decide which shape fits, and there's no pressure to commit to more than you need.

Always. Stock photography quietly tells patients you're hiding something. We shoot your people, your space, and when it helps, drone work of the campus. It's one of the biggest trust levers a practice has.

Brand films, leadership and team interviews, launch films, and short story-driven pieces for websites and LinkedIn. For Knight MacKay Morrow we produced two launch films, one internal announcement for the firm and one for the market. When a story needs a voice and a room, we put your people on camera.

AEO is the practice of getting your firm named when someone asks an AI assistant, like ChatGPT or Google's AI answers, who to hire. Where SEO competes for a link on a results page, AEO competes to be the recommendation the machine gives directly. It's structure, authority, and expert content, working together.

That's exactly the game we play, and we can show you receipts. One Denver litigation client now gets named by AI answer engines for their specialty in Colorado, after two years of deliberate structure, content, and authority work. Start with the free Mirror: we'll show you what AI says about your firm today.

The Mirror is a short, honest report on whether you're being found when your ideal clients ask AI search engines who to hire: the exact answers, verbatim, who gets named next to you, and where the gaps are. It's genuinely free, hand-prepared, and yours to keep. We make a handful each week.

Patients increasingly ask AI assistants who to see, and those systems name practices that present clear expertise, structured information, and consistent authority. We build all of that in: it's the same discipline that got our clients named in AI answers in their own specialties.

Cody spent twenty years inside acute healthcare before UPWARD existed, working with hospitals and the people who run them. We speak clinician, administrator, and CFO. Two of our longest client relationships are healthcare IT firms serving hospitals.

Yes, construction is one of our three focus verticals. We build a site you own, tell your story the way owners and developers evaluate a general contractor, and shoot real project photography, including aerial drone work of completed builds. A template makes you look like every other contractor; we build the digital equivalent of a well-run job site.

Yes. Colorado's Front Range is home and where we shoot most often, but we've built for firms in Kansas City, Texas, and beyond. For photography we come to you.