Do you sell products online to a worldwide customer base? If so, then here’s a good idea: consider providing users with the convenience of currency conversion on your site.
Currency converting software lets your prospects have the cost of a foreign currency amount translated into their local currency at the buying or checkout phase. It also allows your customers to see 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 is that it lets visitors see and understand prices in foreign countries in their own home currency, making it it easier for purchasers to calculate their costs and expenses.
If you are a WordPress user, it’s easy to add currency conversion via a plugin to WordPress, allowing your prospective customers to easily determine the cost of your products.
Currencyr – WordPress Free Currency Conversion Plugin
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WP plugin with a unique and attractive converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free!
This plugin includes practical features like the following:
- In-line conversion tool
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Google & European Central Bank
- Supports Shortcodes
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Can be integrated with a number of e-store plugins such as WP-eCommerce & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatic local currency determination
- Supports full translations
Important: The Currencyr plugin needs 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. Ask your webhosting provider to check and upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WordPress dashboard by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins screen and clicking “Install Now” …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can visit the plugin’s settings section by selecting Currencyr from your admin menu …
The plugin settings page provides various configuration options …
For example, you can choose a base currency from a drop-down menu if you want a different currency than the default option ’USD’ …
Similarly, you can select which data provider you want to use from a dropdown menu. The default selection is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can also choose one of the other options, like FoxRate or Google Finance …
Note: If you choose Open Exchange Rates as your provider, you will need to obtain an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can choose how frequently you want to update the exchange rates by selecting 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 (like WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to modify the jQuery settings, simply ignore this setting …
Configure the rest of the settings to suit your needs and don’t forget to click Save Changes when you have finished configuring all of your settings …
After you have finished configuring your settings, you can easily add currency conversion to your WordPress blog’s posts using a shortcode.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, CAD, etc …) with the Currencyr plugin.
How To Use Currencyr Shortcodes
You can easily add currency conversion to WordPress posts, pages and widgets without editing code using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to your WordPress posts and pages:
Let’s say that you are selling your product for a fixed price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would like to display your price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your page.
To do this, you will need to add the following shortcode into your post or page …
Note: You can also insert prices in dollars and cents (for example, 19.95, 37.95, 399.99, etc …)
The example below shows how the above shortcode looks when added to your page …
After publishing your post, the converted currency will appear like this …
Using this example, let’s also convert the same price into different currencies.
To do this, use the shortcode shown below (you can add as many currency symbols as you like by using vertical pipes) …
The example below now shows how the shortcode appears when inserted into a post …
After publishing the page or post, the currency conversion will then display as you can see in the screenshot below …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol within the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s suppose that you want to specify a different base currency than the one set as the default.
For example, say you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your site targeted to non-European customers (like Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The example below now shows how the shortcode appears when inserted into a page …
Once your information has been published, your currency conversion will then appear like this …
How To Use The Widget
You can also insert a currency converter into your site’s sidebar area using a widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, select Appearance > Widgets in the WP 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 in the screenshot below (add any currency codes you would like displaying on your widget separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to save your settings …
The currency conversion tool will now show on your sidebar with the options you have specified …
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 change the symbol in the Multiple Separator settings section.
So, for example, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your prices with the forward slash as shown below …
If you choose another symbol and update your plugin settings …
Your website visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
Integration With e-Commerce Platforms
As mentioned earlier, the Currencyr plugin integrates with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins like WP-eCommerce and Shopp …
(above image sourced from plugin website)
And there you have it! Now you know how to 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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"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