Do you plan to sell your products online globally? If so, then here’s a great idea: consider providing your web visitors with a currency conversion feature.
Currency converting software tools allow your visitors to translate foreign currency prices to their home currency at the buying or checkout stage. It also allows your visitors to see the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their home currency.
The obvious benefit of adding currency conversion to your website is that it allows customers to see and understand prices in foreign countries in their own local currency, and makes it easier for visitors to work out their costs and expenses.
If your site is built with WordPress, you can add a currency converter to WordPress, allowing your site visitors to quickly work out the cost of your goods.
Currencyr – Currency Converter For WordPress
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a unique converter tooltip. It’s also free to install and use on your website.
Some of the many useful features of this plugin include:
- In-line converter
- Supports various exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo! & FoxRates
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Can be integrated with a number of e-store plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Can detect local currency automatically
- Full translation support
Important: This plugin needs PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP on your server. Ask your web hosting support team to upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WP admin area by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins screen and clicking “Install Now” …
When you have installed and activated the plugin, you can access the plugin’s settings page by selecting Currencyr from your administration navigation menu …
The plugin settings page offers you many configuration options …
For example, you can choose your base currency from a drop-down menu. The default option is ‘USD’ …
You can choose which data provider you want to use from a drop-down menu. The default provider is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can select one of the other options, like European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you select Open Exchange Rates, you will need an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can choose how often you want to update the currency exchange rates by specifying an option from the Update Rates dropdown menu …
The plugin uses jQuery, which allows web developers to add things like animation effects to web applications (like WP plugins).
Unless there is a reason to modify the jQuery settings, you can just ignore this setting …
Edit the rest of the settings and don’t forget to click ‘Save Changes’ when finished …
After your plugin settings have been configured, you can easily start adding currency conversion to any of your WordPress pages using widgets.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, JPY, etc …) in the Currencyr plugin.
Using Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to WP posts, pages and widgets without having to mess with code using shortcodes.
Below are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to posts and pages:
Let’s say that you are selling goods on your site for a fixed amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to display the amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your page.
To display this information, just add the following shortcode to your page content …
Note: You can also add prices in dollars and cents (e.g. 175.00, 79.45, 2499.99, etc …)
The example below shows how the shortcode should look after being inserted into your page or post …
After your content has been published, the converted currency will appear like this …
Using this example, let’s also display the same amount into different currency formats.
To do this, use the shortcode below (add as many currency symbols as you like by using vertical pipes) …
The example below now shows how the shortcode looks when you add it to a post …
After publishing the page or post, your currency conversion will then display as you can see in the example below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol within the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s suppose that you would like to select a different base currency than the one selected 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 from countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
Here’s how the above shortcode appears when added to a page …
Once your post has been published, your currency conversion will then display as seen in the example below …
Widget
You can also add a currency converter to your website’s sidebar using the Currencyr widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar menu, choose Appearance > Widgets in 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 settings as shown in the screenshot below (add currency codes separated by a comma), and click Save to save your settings …
Your currency converter tool will now show on your site’s sidebar menu with the settings you have selected …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful information about using the plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin allows you to 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) …
Separates all your currency values with the forward slash as shown below …
If you specify another symbol and resave your settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
Integration With e-Commerce Platforms
As described earlier, the plugin can be integrated with a number of WP-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WP-eCommerce and Shopp …
(image source: Currencyr plugin site)
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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