Do you plan to sell goods or services online worldwide? If so, then it’s a great idea to think about providing your web visitors with a currency conversion tool.
Currency conversion software tools allow your prospects to have the price of a foreign currency transaction converted into their local currency at the point of sale. It also allows your visitors to see the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their home currency.
One great advantage of providing currency conversion on your site is that it allows your customers to view and understand prices in foreign countries in their own local currency, making it it easier for customers to work out their costs and expenses.
If you are a WordPress user, you can add a currency conversion plugin to your WordPress site, allowing your prospective customers to quickly calculate the cost of your products.
Currencyr – Currency Converting Tool For WP Websites
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. It’s also free to install and use on your WordPress website or blog.
Plugin features include:
- In-line conversion tool
- Supports several exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo! and FoxRates
- Supports Shortcodes
- Currency table and converter widget
- Supports integration with various e-store plugins such as WP-eCommerce & Shopp.
- Automatically determines local currency
- Full language 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. Alternatively, ask your web hosting provider to update your PHP server installation if needed.
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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 “Install Now” …
When the plugin has been installed and activated, you can visit the plugin’s settings section by choosing Currencyr from your admin user area …
The plugin settings area provides several configuration options …
For example, you can choose your base currency from the Base Currency dropdown menu if you prefer to use a different currency than the default option ’United States Dollar’ …
You can specify which data provider you want to use from the drop-down menu in the Provider section. The default selection is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can select another provider, such as European Central Bank or Google Finance …
Note: If you select ‘Open Exchange Rates’ as your provider, you will need an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can choose how often you would like the exchange rates to be updated 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 (such as WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to edit the jQuery settings, leave this option alone …
Edit the remainder of the settings and don’t forget to click the Save Changes button when finished …
When you have configured your plugin settings, you can easily add currency conversion to any WP page using a shortcode.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the end of this tutorial to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, JPY, etc …) in this plugin.
How To Use Currencyr Shortcodes
You can insert currency conversion into posts, pages and widgets with no web coding knowledge using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to WP posts and pages:
Let’s say that you sell your product online for a fixed amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to show your price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your product sales page.
All you need to do is add the following shortcode into your page content …
Note: You can also insert pricing in dollars and cents (e.g. 188.35, 37.95, 400.00, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how your shortcode looks after being added to a page …
Once your page or post has been published, your converted currency amount will appear as seen in the example below …
Using this example, let’s now translate the same amount into multiple currency formats.
To do this, use the shortcode shown below (add as many currency symbols as you like by using vertical pipes) …
The example below shows how the shortcode appears when inserted into a page …
After publishing your page, the converted currency amounts will then appear as shown below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the end of this tutorial to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol in this plugin.
Now, let’s say that you would like to select a different base currency than the one you have selected 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 customers from countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
You can see how the shortcode appears when you add it to your content …
After publishing your information, your currency conversion will then display as seen below …
Plugin Widget
You can also add a currency converter to your website’s sidebar section using the plugin’s widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, choose Appearance > Widgets in the WordPress admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to the ‘Active Widgets’ area …
Configure the widget options as shown in the example below (add currency codes separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to update your settings …
Your currency conversion tool will now display on your sidebar menu with the options you have specified …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful information about using the Currencyr plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin allows you to specify a symbol of your choice to display as the currency separator when using multiple currencies.
You can change the symbol in the ‘Multiple Separator’ settings section.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your currency amounts with the forward slash as shown below …
If you select another symbol and resave your settings …
Your website visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Integration
As described earlier, the plugin can be integrated with a number of WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: plugin site)
And there you have it! Now you can go and easily add currency conversion to your WordPress website.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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