Are you planning to sell products online internationally? If so, you may want to think about providing your prospects with a currency conversion tool.
Currency converting software tools let your visitors convert international currency pricing to their home currency at the buying or checkout stage. It also lets visitors and customers see the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their own home currency.
The obvious advantage of adding currency conversion to your site is that it lets visitors 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 powered by WordPress, it’s quite easy and simple to add currency conversion using a plugin to your WordPress website or blog, allowing your site visitors to quickly calculate the cost of your goods.
Currencyr
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a unique converter tooltip. And, it’s completely free!
The Currencyr plugin includes a number of features like:
- Inline converter
- Supports various exchange rates providers, such as Google, Open Exchange Rates and FoxRates
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Currency table and converter widget
- Supports integration with a number of e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, Shop and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically determines local currency
- Supports full translations
Important: This plugin requires your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP. Ask your web hosting company to check and upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WP dashboard by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking the “Install” button …
Once the plugin has been installed and activated, you can get to the plugin’s settings screen by selecting Currencyr from your WP administration navigation menu …
The plugin settings area provides several configuration options …
For example, you can select a base currency from the Base Currency drop-down menu if you prefer something other than the default option ‘United States Dollar – (USD)’ …
Similarly, you can choose which data provider you want to use from a drop-down menu. 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’, you will need an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can select how frequently you want 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 (like WordPress plugins).
Unless there is a reason to edit the jQuery settings, just ignore this section …
Edit the rest of the plugin settings and click ‘Save Changes’ when you have finished configuring all the settings in this screen …
When you have finished configuring your settings, you can easily start adding currency conversion to any WP post using shortcodes.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, CAD, etc …) in this plugin.
Using Shortcodes
You can easily add currency conversion to pages, posts and widgets with no coding skills using shortcodes.
Here are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to posts and pages:
Let’s say that you sell an item for a set amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to show the conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your product sales page.
All you need to do is insert the shortcode below into your post or page …
Note: You can also add amounts in dollars and cents (for example, 165.49, 47.00, 129.10, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how the above shortcode looks when inserting it into the post …
Once your information has been published, your currency conversion will appear like this …
Using this example, let’s now translate the same amount into different currencies.
To do this, use the shortcode shown below (add as many currency symbols as you like separated by vertical pipes) …
You can see how the above shortcode appears when you add it to a page …
Once the page has been published, the currency conversion will then appear as seen below …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the end of this tutorial to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol with the Currencyr plugin.
Now, suppose you would like to select 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 e-commerce pages targeted to visitors in countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The example below shows how the above shortcode appears when added to a post …
After publishing your page, the currency conversion will then appear like this …
Currencyr Widget
You can also insert currency conversion into your website or blog’s sidebar area using the plugin’s widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar menu, select Appearance > Widgets from the WordPress dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to an Active Widgets location …
Configure the widget options 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 the sidebar menu with the options you have selected …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional information about using the plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin lets you specify a symbol of your choice to display as the currency separator when using multiple currencies.
You can select a different symbol in the Multiple Separator settings field.
So, for example, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your currency values with a forward slash as shown below …
If you select another symbol and update your plugin settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
Using The Plugin With WordPress-Compatible e-Commerce Software
As mentioned earlier, the plugin integrates with various WP-compatible e-commerce plugins like WP-eCommerce and Shopp …
(above image sourced from plugin website)
Congratulations! Now you can go and easily add a currency converter to your WordPress web site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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