Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce web site or selling products online? If so, then you should probably consider providing your prospects with the convenience of currency conversion on your website.
Currency converting software tools let your prospective customers have the cost of a foreign currency transaction converted to their home currency when purchasing or checking out products online. It also allows customers to view the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their own home currency.
One benefit of showing currency conversion on your website is that it allows your customers to see and understand prices in foreign countries in their own home currency, and makes it easier for visitors to work out their costs and expenses.
Fortunately, if you are a WordPress user, you can add a currency conversion plugin to your website or blog, allowing your prospective customers to quickly understand the cost of your goods.
Currencyr – Free Currency Converting Plugin For WordPress
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. And, it’s also free to install and use on your site.
Great plugin features include:
- Inline converter
- Supports several exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Google, Open Exchange Rates, European Central Bank and FoxRates
- Support database cache driven for fast response
- Currency table and converter widget
- Supports integration with various e-store plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically determines local currency
- Full language translation support
Note: The Currencyr plugin requires PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP. Ask your web host to update your PHP.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WP dashboard by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins screen and clicking “Install Now” …
When the plugin has been installed and activated, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your admin user menu …
The plugin settings screen provides a number of configuration options …
For example, you can choose a base currency from the ‘Base Currency’ drop-down menu if you prefer a different currency than the default option ’USD’ …
You can also select which data provider you want to use from a drop-down menu. The default option is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can also select one of the other options, like European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose Open Exchange Rates, an API (Application Programming Interface) is required …
You can specify how often you would like to update the exchange rates by choosing 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 (e.g. WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to change the jQuery settings, you can just ignore this option …
Configure the rest of the plugin settings to suit your own needs and remember to click the ‘Save Changes’ button when finished …
Once your plugin settings have been configured, you can easily start adding currency conversion to any WordPress page using a shortcode.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, CAD, etc …) with the Currencyr plugin.
Shortcodes
You can easily add currency conversion to pages, posts and widgets without touching your web templates using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to pages and posts:
Let’s say that you are selling goods on your site for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to display this price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
To display this information, you will need to insert the shortcode below into your post or page …
Note: You can also insert amounts in dollars and cents (for example, 188.35, 29.95, 399.99, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how your shortcode will look after being added to a post …
Once your post has been published, your currency conversion will then display as seen in the screenshot below …
Using the above example, let’s now convert the same price into multiple currency formats.
To do this, use the shortcode below (you can add as many currency symbols as you want by using vertical pipes) …
The example below shows how the shortcode looks when inserted into a post …
Once the page or post has been published, your converted currency amounts will then display like this …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol in the Currencyr plugin.
Now, suppose you want to specify a different base currency than the one selected as the default.
For example, say you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your site targeted to customers in countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The example below now shows how the shortcode looks when inserted into a page …
After publishing your page or post, your currency conversion will then appear as seen in the screenshot below …
Using The Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your website or blog’s sidebar menu using the Currencyr widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar area, select Appearance > Widgets from your WordPress dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to an 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 update your settings …
The currency converter tool will now appear on your website’s sidebar with the settings you have specified when configuring the widget …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional information about using the plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin allows you to specify the symbol to display as the currency separator when using several 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 the forward slash as shown below …
If you change this symbol and resave your plugin settings …
Your site visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Platform Integration
As stated earlier, the plugin integrates with a number of WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WP-eCommerce and Shopp …
(above image sourced from Currencyr plugin site)
Congratulations! Now you can go and easily add currency conversion to your WordPress site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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