Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce site or making products available for sale worldwide? If so, then here’s a great idea: consider providing your web visitors with currency conversion.
Currency converting tools allow your web visitors to convert international currency amounts into their home currency at the point of sale. It also lets visitors and customers see the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their home currency.
One great advantage of showing currency conversion on your website is that it allows visitors to see and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own home currency, making it it easier for purchasers to calculate their costs and expenses.
Fortunately, if you are a WordPress user, you can add a currency converter to currency conversion to WordPress via a plugin, allowing your site visitors to quickly perform currency conversions to determine the cost of your goods.
WP Free Currency Conversion Plugin – Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WP plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. It’s also free to install and use on your website.
This currency conversion WordPress plugin features:
- In-line conversion tool
- Supports various exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Google, Open Exchange Rates, European Central Bank and FoxRates
- Supports Shortcodes
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Can be integrated with a number of e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce & Shopp.
- Automatic local currency detection
- Full translation support
Note: The Currencyr plugin needs your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed on your server. Alternatively, ask your web host to check and upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WP dashboard by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking the “Install Now” button …
After you have installed and activated the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your WP administration navigation menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings section …
For example, you can select your base currency from a drop-down menu. The default option is ’USD’ …
Similarly, you can specify any supported data provider from a drop-down menu. The default selection is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can also choose one of the other options, like European Central Bank or Google Finance …
Note: If you select ‘Open Exchange Rates’ as your provider, you will need to obtain an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can select how often you want to update the currency exchange rates by choosing an option from the Update Rates dropdown menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (such as WP plugins).
Unless there is a reason to edit the jQuery settings, leave this option alone …
Configure the rest of the settings and don’t forget to click the Save Changes button when you have finished configuring all the options on this screen …
Once you have configured your plugin settings, you can start adding currency conversion to your WordPress pages using a shortcode.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, ZAR, etc …) in the Currencyr plugin.
Currencyr Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to WordPress pages, posts and widgets without editing your web templates using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to pages and posts:
Let’s say that you sell an item for a fixed price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to display your amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your page.
To display this information, simply add the following shortcode to your page content …
Note: You can also display pricing in dollars and cents (e.g. 155.25, 22.00, 129.10, etc …)
The example below shows how the shortcode looks after being added to a post or page …
After publishing the post or page, the converted currency amount will display as you can see below …
Using this example, let’s now display the same price into multiple currency formats.
To do this, use following shortcode (add as many currency symbols as you want by using vertical pipes) …
You can see how the above shortcode appears when added to a post …
After publishing your content, the currency conversion will then display like this …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol within the Currencyr plugin.
Now, suppose you would like to specify a different base currency than the one you have set as the default.
For example, say you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your site targeted to non-European customers (for example, Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The example below shows how the shortcode looks when inserted into your content …
Once the content has been published, the currency conversion will then display as shown in the screenshot below …
Using The Currencyr Widget
You can also insert currency conversion into your website or blog’s sidebar area using the plugin’s widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar area, choose Appearance > Widgets from your WP user admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to an ‘Active Widgets’ area …
Configure the widget options as shown below (add currency codes separated by a comma), and click ‘Save’ to save your settings …
The currency converter tool will now appear on your website’s sidebar menu with the options you have selected …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional information about using the plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin allows you to specify the symbol to display as the currency separator when using several currencies.
You can select a different symbol in the ‘Multiple Separator’ settings section.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your currency values with the forward slash as shown below …
If you enter another symbol and update your settings …
Your web visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
Integration With e-Commerce Software
As stated earlier, the plugin integrates with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: Currencyr plugin website)
And there you have it! Now you can go and easily add a currency converter to your WordPress website.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now