The notion of a $p$-Riordan graph generalizes that of a Riordan graph, which, in turn, generalizes the notions of a Pascal graph and a Toeplitz graph. In this paper we introduce the notion of a $p$-Riordan word, and show how to encode $p$-Riordan graphs by $p$-Riordan words. For special important cases of Riordan graphs (the case $p=2$) and oriented Riordan graphs (the case $p=3$) we provide alternative encodings in terms of pattern-avoiding permutations and certain balanced words, respectively. As a bi-product of our studies, we provide an alternative proof of a known enumerative result on closed walks in the cube.