Are you planning to sell goods online globally? If so, then it’s a great idea to consider providing your web visitors with a currency conversion service.
Currency conversion software tools let your prospects have the cost of a foreign currency amount translated into their local currency when checking out products on e-commerce sites. It also allows visitors to view the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their home currency.
The obvious benefit of adding currency conversion to your site is that it allows visitors to view and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own home currency, and makes it easier for customers to calculate their costs and expenses.
If you are a WordPress user, you can add a currency conversion plugin to currency conversion to your WordPress website or blog via a plugin, allowing your site visitors to quickly perform currency conversions to determine the cost of your goods.
Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WordPress plugin with a visually attractive converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free to install and use on your WordPress website or blog.
Some of the many useful features of this plugin include the following:
- Inline converter
- Supports several exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Google, Open Exchange Rates, European Central Bank and FoxRates
- Support database cache driven for fast response
- Currency table and converter widget
- Can be integrated with a number of online shopping plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatic local currency determination
- Full translation support
Note: This 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. Ask your webhosting support team to upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the plugin from your WP admin area by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins section and clicking “Install Now” …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can access the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your admin user navigation menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings page …
For example, you can choose a base currency from a drop-down menu if you want something other than the default option ’US Dollar’ …
Similarly, you can choose a data provider from a drop-down menu. The default option is Yahoo Finance, but you can select another provider, such as 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 specify how often you would like the currency exchange rates to update by selecting an option from the Update Rates drop-down menu …
The Currencyr 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 (such as WP plugins).
If you have no reason to change the jQuery settings, you can simply ignore this setting …
Edit the rest of the plugin settings according to your needs and don’t forget to click the Save Changes button when done …
After your plugin settings have been configured, you can add currency conversion to any WordPress post or page using widgets.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, JPY, etc …) with the Currencyr plugin.
Shortcodes
You can insert currency conversion into WordPress pages, posts and widgets without touching your web templates using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to posts and pages:
Let’s say that you sell goods on your website for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show this conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your page.
To do this, you simply need to insert the following shortcode to your post or page …
Note: You can also insert pricing in dollars and cents (for example, 16.95, 22.00, 544.97, etc …)
The example below shows how your shortcode should look after being added to your page …
After your page has been published, your converted currency amount will display like this …
Using the same example, let’s also display the same price into different currencies.
To do this, use following shortcode (you can add as many currency symbols as you want separated by vertical pipes) …
You can see how the shortcode looks when added to a post …
After publishing the page or post, your currency conversion will then display as you can see below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn how to change the currency separator symbol with this plugin.
Now, let’s say that you would like to specify a different base currency than the one selected as your default.
For example, say you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your site targeted to non-European visitors (like Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The example below shows how the shortcode appears when inserted into a post …
After publishing your information, the converted currency will then display like this …
Currencyr Widget
You can also insert currency conversion into your site’s sidebar using the plugin’s widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar area, select Appearance > Widgets in your WP dashboard 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 …
Your currency converter will now appear on your sidebar with the options you have specified when configuring the widget …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional information about using the Currencyr plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin lets you specify the symbol 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) …
Displays your currency values separated by a forward slash as you can see in the example below …
If you change this symbol and resave your settings …
Your site visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
WordPress E-Commerce
As stated earlier, the plugin can be integrated with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image sourced from Currencyr plugin website)
And there you have it! Now you can go and 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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