Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce website or making goods and services available for sale internationally? If so, then you should probably consider providing users with a currency conversion tool.
Currency conversion software lets your visitors have the price of an international currency amount translated to their local currency at the buying or checkout stage. It also lets customers see the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their own local currency.
One great benefit of adding currency conversion is that it lets visitors see and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own local currency, and makes it easier for customers to work out their costs and expenses.
Fortunately, if you are a WordPress user, you can add a currency converter to currency conversion to your site using a plugin, allowing your site visitors to quickly and easily determine the cost of your goods.
Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WP plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free to install and use on your website.
The Currencyr useful WP plugin includes great features like the following:
- In-line conversion tool
- Supports several exchange rates providers, like Google & European Central Bank
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Currency table and converter widget
- Supports integration with a number of e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, Shop & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically detects local currency
- Supports full translations
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. Alternatively, ask your web hosting support team to upgrade 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 …
After the plugin has been installed and activated, you can configure the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your dashboard area …
The plugin settings screen provides a number of configuration options …
For example, you can select your base currency from a dropdown menu. The default currency is ‘USD’ …
You can choose any supported data provider from the dropdown menu in the ‘Provider’ section. The default selection is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can select one of the other options, such as FoxRate or Google Finance …
Note: If you choose ‘Open Exchange Rates’ as your provider, you will need to obtain an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can specify how often you would like to update the currency exchange rates by choosing an option from the ‘Update Rates’ drop-down menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which allows web developers to add things like animation effects to web applications (e.g. WP plugins).
Unless there is a reason to edit the jQuery settings, leave this option alone …
Configure the remainder of the plugin settings according to your preferences and remember to click ‘Save Changes’ when finished …
Once your plugin settings have been configured, you can add currency conversion to WP pages using shortcodes.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, JPY, etc …) with the Currencyr plugin.
Using Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into posts, pages and widgets without having to mess with code 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 retail a product online for a fixed amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show this 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 display prices in dollars and cents (for example, 188.35, 189.00, 129.10, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how the shortcode looks once you have inserted it into your post or page …
After your information has been published, the converted currency amount will appear like this …
Using the above example, let’s now translate the same amount into different currencies.
To do this, use the shortcode below (add as many currency symbols as you like separated by vertical pipes) …
You can see how the above shortcode looks when inserted into a page …
After publishing your page or post, your converted currency amounts will then display like this …
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, suppose you would like to select a different base currency than the one set as the default.
For example, if you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your website targeted to non-European visitors (for example, Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
You can see how the shortcode looks when added to a page …
Once your post has been published, the currency conversion will then appear as seen in the screenshot below …
Widget
You can also insert currency conversion into your website’s sidebar area using the plugin’s widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, choose Appearance > Widgets in the WordPress dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to the ‘Active Widgets’ area …
Configure the widget options as shown in the screenshot below (add currency codes separated by a comma), and click Save to save your settings …
Your currency conversion tool will now appear on your site’s sidebar with the options you have specified when configuring the widget …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful 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 several currencies.
You can select a different 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 choose another symbol and update your settings …
Your web visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
e-Commerce Software Integration
As described earlier, the Currencyr plugin integrates with a number of WP-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(above image sourced from Currencyr 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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