Do you sell products online to a foreign audience? If so, you should consider providing your prospects with a currency conversion service.
Currency conversion software tools allow your customers to convert foreign currency amounts to their home currency at the purchase or checkout phase. It also lets customers see the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their home currency.
The obvious advantage of adding currency conversion to your website is that it lets your customers see and understand prices in foreign countries in their own home currency, making it it easier for purchasers to calculate their costs and expenses.
If your site is built with WordPress, you can add a currency conversion plugin to WordPress, allowing your visitors to quickly and easily work out the cost of your goods.
Currencyr – Free Currency Converting Tool For WordPress
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WordPress plugin with a visually attractive converter tooltip. It’s also free!
Some of the many features of this great plugin include:
- Inline conversion tool
- Supports several exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Open Exchange Rates & European Central Bank
- Supports Shortcodes
- Currency table and converter widget
- Can be integrated with a number of e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce and Shopp.
- Automatically detects local currency
- Supports full language translations
Important: This plugin requires PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP. Alternatively, ask your web hosting provider to upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WP dashboard by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins area and clicking “Install Now” …
When the plugin has been installed and activated, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your dashboard navigation menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings screen …
For example, you can select a base currency from a dropdown menu if you prefer a different currency than the default option ’US Dollar’ …
You can also select any supported data provider from the dropdown menu in the Provider section. The default option is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can also select another provider, such as European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose Open Exchange Rates, an API (Application Programming Interface) will be required …
You can specify how frequently you would like the currency exchange rates to update by selecting an option from the ‘Update Rates’ drop-down menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (e.g. WP plugins).
Unless there is a reason to modify the jQuery settings, leave this option alone …
Configure the remainder of the plugin settings and click Save Changes when done …
After your plugin settings have been configured, you can add currency conversion to any WP page using shortcodes and widgets.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, CAD, etc …) in the Currencyr plugin.
How To Use Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to WP posts, pages and widgets without touching code using shortcodes.
Here are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to pages and posts:
Let’s say that you retail goods online for a set amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show the conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
To do this, you will need to insert the shortcode below into your post or page …
Note: You can also insert pricing in dollars and cents (e.g. 6.95, 97.00, 129.10, etc …)
The example below shows how the shortcode will look after you have inserted it into the product page …
After publishing the content, the converted currency amount will then display like this …
Using this example, let’s now display the same price into multiple currencies.
To do this, use the shortcode shown below (you can add as many currency symbols as you want separated by vertical pipes) …
The example below now shows how the above shortcode looks when added to your content …
After publishing your page or post, the currency conversion will then appear as you can see below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol in the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s suppose that you want to use a different base currency than the one set as your default.
For example, say you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your website targeted to visitors in countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
You can see how the shortcode looks when added to your content …
Once the page has been published, the currency conversion will then appear like this …
Currencyr Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your website’s sidebar section using the Currencyr widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar menu, choose Appearance > Widgets from your WP user admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to the ‘Active Widgets’ location …
Configure the widget settings as shown in the screenshot below (add any currency codes you would like displaying on your widget separated by a comma), and click Save to save your settings …
The currency conversion tool will now appear on the sidebar menu with the settings you have specified when configuring the widget …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional information about using the plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin lets you specify a symbol of your choice to display as the currency separator when using several currencies.
You can select a different symbol in the Multiple Separator settings field.
So, for example, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by the forward slash as shown below …
If you modify this symbol and resave your settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
Using The Plugin With WordPress-Compatible e-Commerce Platforms
As described earlier, the plugin integrates with various WP-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: plugin site)
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily add a currency converter to your WordPress site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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