Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce web site or making goods available for sale worldwide? If so, you may want to consider providing your prospects with the convenience of currency conversion on your site.
Currency conversion allows your customers to convert international currency amounts into their local currency at the point of sale. It also lets visitors and customers view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their own home currency.
One great advantage of displaying currency conversion on your site is that it lets customers see and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own local currency, making it it easier for visitors to work out their costs and expenses.
If you are a WordPress user, you can add a currency conversion plugin to currency conversion to your WordPress web site via a plugin, allowing your customers to quickly perform currency conversions to determine the cost of your goods.
WP Free Currency Converter – Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WP plugin with a unique and attractive converter tooltip. It’s also free!
This useful WP plugin features:
- Inline conversion tool
- Supports several exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Open Exchange Rates and FoxRates
- Supports Shortcodes
- Currency table and converter widget
- Supports integration with various e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically determines local currency
- Supports full 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 upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WordPress dashboard by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins area and clicking “Install Now” …
When the plugin has been installed and activated, you can get to the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your admin menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings screen …
For example, you can choose your base currency from the ‘Base Currency’ dropdown menu if you prefer to use something other than the default option (USD) …
You can select which data provider you want to use from the drop-down menu in the ‘Provider’ section. The default option is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can also select another provider, like FoxRate or Google Finance …
Note: If you choose ‘Open Exchange Rates’, you will need to enter an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can specify how frequently you want to update the currency exchange rates by specifying an option from the ‘Update Rates’ dropdown menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (like WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to change the jQuery settings, simply ignore this setting …
Configure the rest of the plugin settings and don’t forget to click the Save Changes button when finished …
After you have finished configuring your plugin settings, you can easily start adding currency conversion to any WordPress post or page using shortcodes.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, ZAR, etc …) in this plugin.
How To Use Plugin Shortcodes
You can insert currency conversion into WordPress pages, posts and widgets with no programming knowledge using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at 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 amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to display the conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
To do this, you will need to insert the following shortcode into your page content …
Note: You can also add amounts in dollars and cents (e.g. 175.00, 79.45, 399.99, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how the shortcode looks after being inserted into the post …
After publishing the post or page, your converted currency will appear like this …
Using this example, let’s now display the same amount into different currencies.
To do this, use following shortcode (add as many currency symbols as you want separated by vertical pipes) …
You can see how the shortcode appears when you add it to a post …
After publishing the page or post, your converted currency amounts will then appear as seen below …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol within this plugin.
Now, suppose you would like to specify a different base currency than the one you have selected as the default.
For example, say you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your e-commerce pages targeted to visitors in 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 a page …
After publishing your page, your converted currency will then appear as you can see below …
Currencyr Widget
You can also add a currency converter to your site’s sidebar section using the Currencyr widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar menu, select Appearance > Widgets from your WordPress user admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to the Active Widgets location …
Configure the widget settings as shown in the example below (add any currency codes you want displaying on your widget separated by a comma), and click ‘Save’ to save your settings …
Your currency conversion tool will now appear on your sidebar menu with the options you have selected …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional 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) …
Displays your currency values separated by a forward slash as you can see in the screenshot below …
If you modify this symbol and update your plugin settings …
Your site visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Software Integration
As described earlier, the plugin can be integrated with a number of WP-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Shopp …
(image source: Currencyr plugin site)
And there you have it! Now you know how to easily add currency conversion to your WordPress web site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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