Are you planning to sell goods or services online internationally? If so, then you may want to think about providing your prospects with a currency conversion service.
Currency conversion allows your web visitors to have the cost of an international currency amount translated to their local currency at the point of sale. It also allows visitors and customers to view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their own local currency.
One great benefit of adding currency conversion to your site is that it allows customers to view and understand prices in foreign countries in their own local currency, and makes it easier for customers to work out their costs and expenses.
If you are a WordPress user, you can add currency conversion using a plugin to currency conversion to WordPress using a plugin, allowing your customers to quickly and easily perform currency conversions to determine the cost of your products.
Currencyr – Free Currency Converter For WordPress
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WP plugin with a visually attractive converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free to install and use on your WordPress website.
Some of the features of this plugin include the following:
- In-line conversion tool
- Supports several exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Google, Open Exchange Rates, European Central Bank and FoxRates
- Support database cache driven for fast response
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Can be integrated with a number of online store plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Can detect local currency automatically
- 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 currently have an older version of PHP installed on your server. Alternatively, ask your web hosting support team to update your PHP.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WordPress dashboard by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins section and clicking “Install Now” …
After you have installed and activated the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your dashboard area …
The plugin settings page offers you many configuration options …
For example, you can select your base currency from the Base Currency drop-down menu if you want something other than the default option (USD) …
You can select which data provider you want to use from the drop-down menu in the Provider section. The default selection is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can choose one of the other options, like European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose Open Exchange Rates as your provider, you will need to obtain an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can select how frequently you would like to update the currency exchange rates 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 (such as WordPress plugins).
Unless there is a reason to modify the jQuery settings, leave this option alone …
Edit the rest of the settings and click Save Changes when done …
Once your plugin settings have been configured, you can easily start adding currency conversion to WordPress website’s pages using shortcodes.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, ZAR, etc …) with the Currencyr plugin.
Currencyr Shortcodes
You can easily add currency conversion to WordPress posts, pages and widgets without touching code using shortcodes.
Below are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to WordPress pages and posts:
Let’s say that you sell a product online for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to display the price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your product sales page.
To display this information, simply insert the following shortcode to your post or page …
Note: You can also display prices in dollars and cents (e.g. 6.95, 79.45, 295.75, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how your shortcode looks after you have added it to your page …
After publishing your post, the converted currency will then display like this …
Using this example, let’s also translate the same amount into different currency formats.
To do this, use following shortcode (you can add as many currency symbols as you want by using vertical pipes) …
The screenshot below shows how the above shortcode appears when added to a page …
After publishing your information, the converted currency will then appear like this …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol within this plugin.
Now, suppose you would like to use a different base currency than the one selected as your default.
For example, say you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your website targeted to customers in countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
You can see how the shortcode appears when inserted into a page …
After publishing the information, your converted currency will then display as shown below …
Using The Currencyr Widget
You can also insert a currency converter into your website or blog’s sidebar section using a widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, select Appearance > Widgets in your WordPress user admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to an Active Widgets location …
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 display on your sidebar with the settings you have specified …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful information about using the Currencyr 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 change the symbol in the Multiple Separator settings section.
So, for example, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by a forward slash as you can see in the example below …
If you specify another symbol and resave your settings …
Your site visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Platform Integration
As mentioned earlier, the Currencyr plugin can be integrated with various WP-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Shopp …
(image sourced from Currencyr plugin site)
Congratulations! Now you can go and easily add a currency converter to your e-commerce site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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