Ryan Moor was still in his 20s when the company he founded, Ryonet, became a multi-million dollar business. These days, the 30-something CEO continues to spearhead major growth at Ryonet, a web-based seller of screenprinting equipment and supplies that now generates about $50 million in annual sales.

The keys to Moor’s success? Yes, expertise in screenprinting. But as important is his savvy when it comes to executing cost-effective Internet marketing and ecommerce.

During a Monday professional education session at the ASI Show Fort Worth called “Make Your Website Work For You,” Moor shared some of his top strategies that distributors can use to power up their online presence so that it helps propel sales for their businesses. A few highlights include:

Make It Visual: Include engaging video and images on your website that grab attention and that are relevant to the end-buyers you’re courting. Moor pointed to the example of Kotis Design (asi/244898). The home page of the distributorship’s site features hi-res images, done in a slider format, that are tailored to cater to particular market verticals that Kotis targets. “Your website should be reflective of who you are as a brand and the type of engagement you want to have with clients,” Moor told the audience of distributors.

Include The Essentials: A good website will feature elements like logical navigation, testimonials, opt-in offers, responsive design, relevant calls-to-action, FAQs, and contact information that’s “live text,” which includes things like contact email addresses and phone numbers that visitors can click on to instantly connect with you. “Your website should help create a vision of what you can do,” said Moor.

Get Blogging: One of the most important elements your site should feature is an abundance of expert content. Blogs provide an excellent vehicle for delivering that content. Strive to create two or three blog posts per week, Moor said. They don’t have to be long; three or four paragraphs is perfect, said Moor. Featuring images and video on blogs helps bring them to life. Topics should be useful and/or entertaining to the audiences with which you want to connect. “A good blog is the best marketing engine you can have,” said Moor, as it can play a pivotal role in boosting your rank in organic web searches relevant to your business. Moor noted that blogs should feature “share buttons” so readers can easily share them on their social networks.  

Build Up Your Backlinks: “Backlinks” are what their name states -- links back to your website from other websites. The more legitimate links back to your website, the higher you can rank in organic searches on important keywords and topics. While not necessarily easy to do, it’s especially advantageous to get backlinks from highly cited, highly reputable websites, such as established news organizations. Such backlinks help accelerate your site up the SEO ladder, as happened with a client of Moor’s who scored a viral video (it involves a T-shirt freezing instantly in extreme cold) that was cited by news organizations around the world. “You want to create engaging content that people will want to share over and over again,” Moor said. The site SEMRush.com can provide valuable insights on website traffic, keywords, backlinks and more that can help as you go about content creation and getting backlinks, he added.

Get The Most Out of Each Content Piece: When you focus on a content topic, Moor suggests that you make a video, take pictures and write a blog. The different elements help reinforce each other. Video hosted on YouTube, for example, can be put inside a blog post, while video stills or images shot while creating the video can be used to hype the content on your social channels. Action shots on social do especially well.  Always share links to videos, blogs, etc. through your social channels.

Engage On Social: It’s called social media for a reason; it’s about being social. When people comment on or share your posts, acknowledge that with thanks and/or commenting back on what they have said. That type of engagement can generate more engagement, which in turn can help get posts before more eyes online.

Claim Your Listing On Google My Business:…And get happy customers to leave you positive reviews.