Do you plan to sell your products online to a worldwide audience? If so, then here’s a good idea: think about providing your prospects with the convenience of currency conversion on your website.
Currency converting tools let your prospects translate foreign currency amounts to their local currency when purchasing products online. It also allows visitors to see the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their own local currency.
The obvious benefit of providing currency conversion is that it lets customers view and understand prices in foreign countries in their own local currency, making it it easier for visitors to calculate their costs and expenses.
Fortunately, if you are a WordPress user, you can add currency conversion via a plugin to WordPress, allowing your site visitors to easily calculate the cost of your products.
WP Free Currency Converter – 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.
Some of the useful features of this useful plugin include:
- Inline conversion tool
- Supports various exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Open Exchange Rates & FoxRates
- Supports Shortcodes
- Currency table and converter widget
- Can be integrated with a number of e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Can determine local currency automatically
- 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. Alternatively, ask your web host to update your PHP.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WordPress dashboard by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking the “Install Now” button …
Once you have installed and activated the plugin, you can visit the plugin’s settings screen by selecting Currencyr from your administration 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 a different currency than the default option ‘United States Dollar – (USD)’ …
Similarly, you can specify any supported data provider from the dropdown menu in the Provider section. The default provider is Yahoo Finance, but you can also select one of the other options, like FoxRate or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you select Open Exchange Rates, an API (Application Programming Interface) will be required …
You can select how often you would like the currency exchange rates to update by specifying an option from the ‘Update Rates’ dropdown menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which allows web developers to add things like animation effects to web applications (like WP plugins).
If you have no reason to modify the jQuery settings, leave these as they are …
Edit the rest of the plugin settings to suit your needs and remember to click ‘Save Changes’ when you have finished configuring all of your options …
After your plugin settings have been configured, you can easily start adding currency conversion to any WordPress post using widgets.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, ZAR, etc …) in this plugin.
How To Use Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to pages, posts and widgets without having to mess with your web templates using shortcodes.
Below are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to your WP pages and posts:
Let’s say that you are selling an item for a fixed price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show this amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your product information page.
All you need to do is insert the following shortcode into your page content …
Note: You can also add amounts in dollars and cents (for example, 89.95, 97.00, 129.10, etc …)
The example below shows how the shortcode looks after being added to the page …
After the information has been published, your currency conversion will then appear like this …
Using the same example, let’s now display the same amount into different currencies.
To do this, use the shortcode below (add as many currency symbols as you like by using vertical pipes) …
The screenshot below now shows how the shortcode looks when inserted into a post …
Once your page has been published, your currency conversion will then display like this …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol with this plugin.
Now, suppose you would like to select a different base currency than the one set 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 screenshot below shows how the above shortcode appears when added to a post …
After publishing your post or page, the currency conversion will then display as shown below …
Widget
You can also add a currency converter to your site’s sidebar using a widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar menu, choose Appearance > Widgets from your WP admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to the Active Widgets location …
Configure the widget options as shown in the example below (add currency codes separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to save your settings …
The currency converter tool will now appear on your site’s sidebar menu with the options you have specified when configuring the widget …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful 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 change the symbol in the Multiple Separator settings section.
So, for example, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your prices using the forward slash as shown below …
If you enter another symbol and update your plugin settings …
Your website visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
Integration With e-Commerce Platforms
As stated earlier, the Currencyr plugin integrates with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins like WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(above image sourced from Currencyr plugin website)
Congratulations! Now you can go and easily add currency conversion to your e-commerce web 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