1. Promoting Apps with Smart App Banners
Safari has a new Smart App Banner feature in iOS 6 and later that provides a standardized method of promoting apps on the App Store from a website...when you add the necessary code to your main website, and users go to it on Safari on their iPhone or iPad, they see this banner (which looks like the App Store)...they click on it and are taken to the App Store where they can download your app. If they already have the app installed, instead of "View" the button says "Open" and clicking it will open the app.
More Info, from Apple:
Smart App Banners vastly improve users’ browsing experience compared to other promotional methods. As banners are implemented in iOS 6, they will provide a consistent look and feel across the web that users will come to recognize. Users will trust that tapping the banner will take them to the App Store and not a third-party advertisement. They will appreciate that banners are presented unobtrusively at the top of a webpage, instead of as a full-screen ad interrupting the web content. And with a large and prominent close button, a banner is easy for users to dismiss.
If the app is already installed on a user's device, the banner intelligently changes its action, and tapping the banner will simply open the app. If the user doesn’t have your app on his device, tapping on the banner will take him to the app’s entry in the App Store. When he returns to your website, a progress bar appears in the banner, indicating how much longer the download will take to complete. When the app finishes downloading, the View button changes to an Open button, and tapping the banner will open the app while preserving the user’s context from your website.
Smart App Banners automatically determine whether the app is supported on the user’s device. If the device loading the banner does not support your app, or if your app is not available in the user's location, the banner will not display.
How to get the banner on your website:
To add a Smart App Banner to your website, include the following meta tag in the head of each page where you’d like the banner to appear:
- app-id: (Required.) Replace the 123456789 in the code above with your app's unique identifier. Your app ID is the nine-digit number right after "id" in the URL we gave you when your app launched. If you need it again, visit our Facebook page, where we announce all the apps and link to them... your ID will be in that link... https://www.facebook.com/lucidiom Or, just let us know!
NOTE: You cannot display Smart App Banners inside of a frame.
2. App Store Badge
This is just a graphic that you can link to your app. There are a few versions available...these are great for newsletters, blogs, or anywhere on your website. Use the URL we gave you when your app launched as the link. If you need help, let us know!
For use on electronic communications (websites, email, online newsletters, banner ads, blogs):
For use on communications that can't be linked (printed flyers, direct mail):
Download Badges Here
3. Linking to Your App
Designing Vanity URLs
For offline communications such as print and TV, provide a simple way for users to find your app with an easy-to-remember App Store Short Link. The App Store automatically generates these URLs for all apps and companies.
You can make App Store Short Links for iOS apps in the following forms:
- Single app. http://appstore.com/<appname>, such as http://appstore.com/keynote
- All apps for a company. http://appstore.com/<companyname>, such as http://appstore.com/apple
- Single app with company name. http://appstore.com/<companyname>/<appname>, such as http://appstore.com/apple/keynote
For more information, see Creating easy-to-read short links to the App Store for your apps and company.