Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce web site or making products available for sale worldwide? If so, then it’s a great idea to consider providing your web visitors with currency conversion.
Currency conversion software tools allow your prospects to translate foreign currency prices into their local currency at the buying or checkout stage. It also lets your visitors see the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their own local currency.
One great benefit of providing currency conversion on your website is that it allows visitors to see and understand prices in foreign countries in their own local currency, making it it easier for customers to calculate their costs and expenses.
If your site is powered by WordPress, you can add a currency converter to your WordPress website, allowing your prospective customers to quickly determine the cost of your goods.
Currencyr
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WP plugin with a unique converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free to install and use on your WordPress site.
This useful plugin includes features like the following:
- In-line conversion tool
- Supports several exchange rates providers, such as Google and European Central Bank
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Currency table and converter widget
- Can be integrated with various e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce and Shopp.
- Automatically determines local currency
- Translation support
Important: The Currencyr plugin requires your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP. Alternatively, ask your web hosting provider to check and upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the plugin from your WordPress admin area by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins screen and clicking “Install Now” …
Once you have installed and activated the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your admin area …
This takes you to the plugin settings section …
For example, you can select your base currency from a dropdown menu. The default option is ‘United States Dollar – (USD)’ …
Similarly, you can specify a data provider from the dropdown menu in the ‘Provider’ section. The default option is Yahoo Finance, but you can select one of the other options, such as European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you select Open Exchange Rates as your provider, you will need an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can specify how often you would like the exchange rates to be updated by specifying an option from the Update Rates drop-down menu …
The plugin uses jQuery, which is an open-source library of Javascript code that lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (like WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to edit the jQuery settings, leave them as they are …
Configure the rest of the plugin settings to suit your own needs and remember to click Save Changes when done …
After you have finished configuring your plugin settings, you can add currency conversion to any WP post or page using a shortcode.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, JPY, etc …) with this plugin.
Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to pages, posts and widgets with no coding skills using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to WordPress posts and pages:
Let’s say that you retail an item online for a fixed price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to display this amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your page.
To do this, just insert the shortcode below to your post or page …
Note: You can also add pricing in dollars and cents (e.g. 16.95, 29.95, 399.99, etc …)
The example below shows how the shortcode looks once you have added it to a post or page …
After your page has been published, your converted currency amount will appear like this …
Using this example, let’s also display the same amount into multiple currency formats.
To do this, use following shortcode (you can add as many currency symbols as you like by using vertical pipes) …
You can see how the above shortcode appears when added to a post …
Once your information has been published, the converted currency will then appear as shown below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol within this plugin.
Now, suppose you want to specify a different base currency than the one selected as the default.
For example, if you have set 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 …
Here’s how the above shortcode looks when added to a post …
Once your page or post has been published, the currency conversion will then appear as seen in the example below …
Using The Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your website’s sidebar menu using a widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, choose Appearance > Widgets from your WordPress user admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to an ‘Active Widgets’ area …
Configure the widget settings as shown in the screenshot below (add currency codes separated by a comma), and click ‘Save’ to update your settings …
The currency converter tool will now appear on your sidebar with the settings you have selected …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful information about using the Currencyr plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin lets you specify the symbol to display as the currency separator when using multiple currencies.
You can select a different symbol in the Multiple Separator settings section.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by the forward slash as shown below …
If you change the symbol and update your plugin settings …
Your website visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Integration
As described earlier, the plugin can be integrated with various WP-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image sourced from plugin site)
Congratulations! Now you can go and 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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