Do you sell any products online worldwide? If so, then here’s a great idea: consider providing users with currency conversion.
Currency conversion lets your customers convert foreign currency prices into their local currency at the point of sale. It also allows visitors and customers to view the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their own home currency.
The obvious benefit of adding currency conversion to your site is that it lets visitors see and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own local currency, and makes it easier for purchasers to calculate their costs and expenses.
If your site is built using WordPress, it’s easy to add a currency converter to your WordPress web site, allowing your customers to quickly and easily calculate the cost of your products.
WordPress Free Currency Converter – Currencyr
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WordPress plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free to install and use on your WordPress website or blog.
This currency conversion plugin features:
- Inline conversion tool
- Supports several exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Google, Open Exchange Rates, European Central Bank and FoxRates
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Currency table and converter widget
- Can be integrated with a number of e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce and Shopp.
- Automatically detects local currency
- Translation support
Important: The Currencyr plugin requires PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP. Alternatively, ask your web host to upgrade your PHP server installation.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WP admin area by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking the “Install Now” button …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can get to the plugin’s settings page by selecting Currencyr from your admin user navigation menu …
The plugin settings area offers you many configuration settings …
For example, you can choose your base currency from a drop-down menu if you prefer to use a different currency than the default option ’USD’ …
Similarly, you can choose which data provider you want to use from a drop-down menu. The default provider is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can also select one of the other options, such as European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose ‘Open Exchange Rates’, an API (Application Programming Interface) will be required …
You can choose how frequently you want to update the exchange rates by specifying an option from the Update Rates drop-down menu …
The plugin uses jQuery, which allows web developers to add things like animation effects to web applications (such as WP plugins).
If you have no reason to modify the jQuery settings, leave this option alone …
Edit the remainder of the plugin settings according to your preferences and don’t forget to click the ‘Save Changes’ button when finished …
When your plugin settings have been configured, you can add currency conversion to any WordPress post using a shortcode.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, JPY, etc …) in this plugin.
Currencyr Shortcodes
You can insert currency conversion into posts, pages and widgets with no web coding skills or knowledge using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to 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 your amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your page.
All you need to do is insert the following shortcode to your post or page …
Note: You can also add amounts in dollars and cents (e.g. 19.95, 22.00, 149.00, etc …)
The example below shows how the shortcode will look after you have added it to a post or page …
After publishing the post, your currency conversion will display like this …
Using this example, let’s now convert the same amount into different currency formats.
To do this, use following shortcode (add as many currency symbols as you like separated by vertical pipes) …
You can see how the shortcode appears when added to a post …
After publishing your content, your converted currency amounts will then display like this …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol in the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s suppose that you would like to select a different base currency than the one selected as the default.
For example, if you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your site targeted to non-European customers (for example, Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The example below shows how the shortcode appears when you add it to your content …
After publishing the page or post, your converted currency will then appear as shown in the example below …
Currencyr Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your website’s sidebar section using the plugin’s widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar, choose Appearance > Widgets in your WP dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to the Active Widgets area …
Configure the widget options as shown in the example below (add any currency codes you would like displaying on your widget separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to update your settings …
The currency converter will now appear on your website’s sidebar menu with the options you have specified when configuring the widget …
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 change the 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 screenshot below …
If you choose another symbol and resave your settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
Integration With e-Commerce Software
As stated earlier, the plugin integrates with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: Currencyr plugin website)
And there you have it! Now you can go and easily add a currency converter to your e-commerce web site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)