Are you planning to set up an e-commerce web site with WordPress, or sell goods worldwide? If so, then here’s a great idea: think about providing your web visitors with a currency conversion tool.
Currency conversion software allows your visitors to have the price of a foreign currency transaction translated into their local currency at the point of sale. It also lets your customers see the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their own local currency.
The obvious advantage of providing currency conversion on your website is that it lets your customers see and understand prices in foreign countries in their own local currency, and makes it easier for visitors to calculate their costs and expenses.
If your site is built using WordPress, it’s really easy to add currency conversion via a plugin to currency conversion to WordPress via a plugin, allowing your prospective customers to quickly and easily determine the cost of your products.
Currencyr – WP Free Currency Converter
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WP plugin with a unique converter tooltip. It’s also free to install and use on your WordPress web site.
Plugin features include the following:
- Inline converter
- Supports several exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo! & Open Exchange Rates
- Support database cache driven for fast response
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Can be integrated with various online store plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Can determine local currency automatically
- Full language translation support
Note: The Currencyr plugin requires PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP. Alternatively, ask your web host to check and upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WordPress admin area by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking the ”Install Now” button …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your dashboard area …
This takes you to the plugin settings area …
For example, you can select a base currency from the ‘Base Currency’ dropdown menu. The default base currency is ’United States Dollar’ …
Similarly, you can specify any supported data provider from the dropdown menu in the Provider section. The default provider is Yahoo Finance, but you can also choose another provider, such as European Central Bank or Google Finance …
Note: If you choose ‘Open Exchange Rates’ as your provider, you will need an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can specify how frequently you would like the exchange rates to update 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 allows web developers to add things like animation effects to web applications (such as WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to edit the jQuery settings, just ignore this setting …
Edit the rest of the settings to suit your own needs and click Save Changes when finished …
When you have finished configuring your settings, you can easily add currency conversion to WP site’s posts and pages using widgets.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, JPY, etc …) with the Currencyr plugin.
Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into WordPress pages, posts and widgets with no programming knowledge using shortcodes.
Here are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to posts and pages:
Let’s say that you are selling goods on your website for a fixed price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to display your conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your product information page.
To display this information, just insert the following shortcode to your post or page …
Note: You can also insert amounts in dollars and cents (for example, 19.95, 79.45, 399.99, etc …)
The example below shows how your shortcode looks when added to a post …
Once your information has been published, your converted currency amount will display as shown in the example below …
Using this example, let’s now convert the same amount into different currency formats.
To do this, use the shortcode below (you can add as many currency symbols as you want separated by vertical pipes) …
You can see how the above shortcode appears when you add it to your content …
Once the post has been published, your currency conversion will then appear like this …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn how to change the currency separator symbol with the Currencyr plugin.
Now, suppose you want to specify a different base currency than the one set as the default.
For example, if you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your site targeted to customers in countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
You can see how the above shortcode appears when you add it to a post …
Once your content has been published, your converted currency amounts will then appear like this …
How To Use The Currencyr Widget
You can also add a currency converter to your website’s sidebar using the Currencyr widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, select Appearance > Widgets from your WordPress dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to an ‘Active Widgets’ area …
Configure the widget settings as shown in the example below (add currency codes separated by a comma), and click Save to save your settings …
Your currency converter tool will now display on your sidebar menu with the options you have specified …
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 change the symbol in the ‘Multiple Separator’ settings field.
So, for example, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your currency values using a forward slash as you can see in the example below …
If you change the symbol and update your settings …
Your site visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
Integration With e-Commerce Software
As described earlier, the Currencyr plugin integrates with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins like WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: Currencyr plugin site)
Congratulations! Now you can go and easily add currency conversion to your WordPress website.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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