Promoting Your Skill with Quick Links
Now that the skill is live, you’ll want to tell the world about it. The easiest way to do that it to publish a quick link to your skill.
Quick links are URLs that can be published on a web site or blog, an email, on Twitter, or anywhere else you can share an HTTP URL. When someone clicks on a quick link for a skill, they’ll be prompted to login to their Amazon account (if they are not already logged in) and select one of their Alexa devices to launch the skill from. Then, the skill will be automatically launched on the selected device.
All you need to create a quick link is the published skill’s ID to plug into the following URL template: https://alexa-skills.amazon.{domain}/apis/custom/skills/{skill-id}/launch
You’ll need to replace “{skill-id}” with skill ID. And you’ll need to replace “{domain}” with the top-level domain of the country that the quick link is for. The following table shows what the top-level domain should be for each country supported in the Alexa marketplace:
Country Code | Top-Level Domain |
|---|---|
AU | .com.au |
BR | .com.br |
CA | .ca |
DE | .de |
ES | .es |
FR | .fr |
GB | .co.uk |
IN | .in |
IT | .it |
JP | .co.jp |
MX | .com.mx |
US | .com |
For example, if the Star Port 75 Travel skill has a skill ID of “amzn1.ask.skill.28e3f37-2b4-4b5-849-bcf4f2e081”, then the quick link for the United States will be https://alexa-skills.amazon.com/apis/custom/skills/amzn1.ask.skill.28e3f37-2b4-4b5-849-bcf4f2e081/launch. Similarly, the quick link for Spain would be https://alexa-skills.amazon.es/apis/custom/skills/amzn1.ask.skill.28e3f37-2b4-4b5-849-bcf4f2e081/launch.
With the quick link URL in hand, share it anywhere and with anyone you want. Although it’s not necessary, it’s usually a good idea to include instructions for how to launch the skill vocally with the invocation name. For example, you might include a link to the skill’s quick link on a webpage along side some text that says “...or say Alexa, open Star Port 75 Travel.” This offers the user two ways to launch the skill—vocally and by clicking the link.
The skill has been published and you’ve told everyone about it with a quick link. But, we’re far from finished. After celebrating, come back and settle in for what happens after publication: tracking skill analytics.