Are you planning to sell goods or services online worldwide? If so, then you should consider providing your prospects with currency conversion.
Currency conversion lets your site visitors convert international currency prices into their home currency when purchasing or checking out products online. It also allows visitors to see the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their home currency.
One great advantage of adding currency conversion is that it lets visitors view and understand prices in foreign countries in their own home currency, making it it easier for visitors to calculate their costs and expenses.
If your site is powered by WordPress, you can add a currency converter to currency conversion to WordPress via a plugin, allowing your prospective customers to easily work out the cost of your products.
Currencyr – WP Free Currency Conversion Plugin
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a unique and attractive converter tooltip. It’s also free!
Some of the useful features of this plugin include:
- In-line converter
- Supports various 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 various e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatic local currency determination
- Support for language translations
Important: The Currencyr plugin requires your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed on your server. Alternatively, ask your web host to update your PHP.
***
You can install the plugin from your WordPress dashboard by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins screen and clicking the “Install” button …
Once you have installed and activated the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your admin area …
This takes you to the plugin settings page …
For example, you can select your base currency from a drop-down menu if you prefer to use something other than the default option ’United States Dollar’ …
You can choose which data provider you want to use from a drop-down menu. The default option is Yahoo Finance, but you can also select one of the other options, such as European Central Bank or Google Finance …
Note: If you choose Open Exchange Rates, an API (Application Programming Interface) will be required …
You can specify how frequently you would like to update the currency exchange rates by selecting an option from the Update Rates dropdown 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 (e.g. WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to edit the jQuery settings, leave this option alone …
Edit the rest of the settings and remember to click ‘Save Changes’ when done …
Once you have finished configuring your plugin settings, you can add currency conversion to any WordPress page or post using a shortcode.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, ZAR, etc …) in the Currencyr plugin.
Currencyr Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into posts, pages and widgets with no coding knowledge using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to WordPress pages and posts:
Let’s say that you sell your products for a fixed amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to display this price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your page.
All you need to do is add the shortcode below into your post or page …
Note: You can also add amounts in dollars and cents (for example, 165.49, 97.00, 1356.87, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how your shortcode looks after being inserted into a page …
After publishing your page, the currency conversion will then display as you can see in the example below …
Using the same example, let’s also display the same amount into multiple currency formats.
To do this, use the shortcode below (add as many currency symbols as you want separated by vertical pipes) …
You can see how the above shortcode looks when added to a post …
Once the post or page has been published, your converted currency amounts will then display like this …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the end of this tutorial to learn how to change the currency separator symbol with the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s suppose that you want to specify a different base currency than the one you have set as the default.
For example, if you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your e-commerce pages targeted to visitors from countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
You can see how the above shortcode appears when inserted into your content …
Once your page has been published, your converted currency amounts will then appear like this …
Currencyr Widget
You can also insert currency conversion into your website’s sidebar using the plugin’s widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, select 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 options as shown in the example below (add currency codes separated by a comma), and click ‘Save’ to save your settings …
Your currency converter will now appear on your sidebar with the settings you have specified …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful information about using the plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin lets you 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, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by a forward slash as shown below …
If you enter another symbol and resave your plugin settings …
Your site visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
Using The Plugin With WP-Compatible e-Commerce Software
As mentioned earlier, the Currencyr plugin can be integrated with various WP-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image sourced from plugin site)
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily add a currency converter to your e-commerce website.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
***
"I am beyond impressed with what you have put together. I can tell that you put a ton of hard work into building what you have. You have the absolute best content on WordPress I have ever seen!" - Robert T. Jillie