How To Add Currency Conversion In WordPress

Learn how to easily add currency conversion to your WordPress website or blog using a free WordPress plugin called Currencyr …

Add Currency Conversion To WordPressDo you sell goods and services online internationally? If so, then here’s a great idea: think about providing your prospects with a currency conversion service.

Currency converting tools let your customers translate international currency prices to their home currency at the buying or checkout phase. It also lets visitors and customers see the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their home currency.

The obvious benefit of showing currency conversion on your website is that it allows your customers to view and understand prices in foreign countries in their own home currency, making it it easier for purchasers to calculate their costs and expenses.

If you are a WordPress user, it’s simple to add a currency conversion plugin to WordPress, allowing your site visitors to easily calculate the cost of your goods.

Currencyr – WP Currency Conversion Plugin

Currencyr - WP Free Currency Converter

Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WordPress plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. And, it’s completely free!

Some of the useful features of this useful plugin include:

  • In-line conversion tool
  • Supports several exchange rates providers, such as Google & European Central Bank
  • Supports Shortcodes
  • Currency table and converter widget
  • Supports integration with various online shopping plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
  • Automatic local currency determination
  • Supports full language translations

Note: This plugin requires your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP on your server. Alternatively, ask your web host to upgrade your PHP.

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You can install the plugin from your WP admin area by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking the “Install Now” button …

WordPress Plugin - Currency Conversion

After installing and activating the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your admin user area …

WordPress Plugin - Currency Converter

The plugin settings screen provides many configuration settings …

WP Plugin - Currency Converter

For example, you can select a base currency from the ‘Base Currency’ dropdown menu if you want a different currency than the default option ’USD’ …

WP Plugin - Currencyr

You can also choose any supported data provider from the drop-down menu in the Provider section. The default option is Yahoo Finance, but you can select one of the other options, like FoxRate or Google Finance …

WP Plugin - Currency Converter

Note: If you select ‘Open Exchange Rates’ as your provider, an API (Application Programming Interface) is required …

WP Plugin - Currency Conversion

You can specify how frequently you would like to update the currency exchange rates by choosing an option from the ‘Update Rates’ dropdown menu …

WordPress Plugin - Currency Converter

The plugin uses jQuery, which lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (like WP plugins).

If you have no reason to edit the jQuery settings, just ignore this option …

WordPress Plugin - Currency Conversion

Configure the rest of the settings to suit your own preferences and click Save Changes when done …

WP Plugin - Currency Converter

When your plugin settings have been configured, you can easily start adding currency conversion to your WP posts using a shortcode.

See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, JPY, etc …) in this plugin.

Shortcodes

You can easily add currency conversion to posts, pages and widgets without having to mess with code using shortcodes.

Below are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to pages and posts:

Let’s say that you are selling an item on your site for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show this amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.

To display this information, just add the following shortcode to your page content …

WP Plugin - Currency Converter

Note: You can also add amounts in dollars and cents (for example, 16.95, 189.00, 400.00, etc …)

The screenshot below shows how the above shortcode should look after being inserted into a post …

WP Plugin - Currency Conversion

When your post has been published, the converted currency amount will then display like this …

WordPress Plugin - Currency Conversion

Using the same example, let’s also display the same price into multiple currency formats.

To do this, use the shortcode shown below (add as many currency symbols as you like separated by vertical pipes) …

WP Plugin - Currency Converter

You can see how the above shortcode looks when you add it to a post …

WP Plugin - Currencyr

After publishing your content, your currency conversion will then appear as seen below …

WP Plugin - Currency Conversion

refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol within the Currencyr plugin.

Now, let’s suppose that you would like 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 website targeted to non-European customers (e.g. Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …

WP Plugin - Currencyr

The example below shows how the shortcode appears when inserted into a page …

WordPress Plugin - Currency Converter

Once the page or post has been published, the converted currency will then display as seen below …

WordPress Plugin - Currencyr

Currencyr Widget

You can also add a currency converter to your site’s sidebar section using the plugin’s widget.

To add currency conversion to your sidebar menu, select Appearance > Widgets in the WP dashboard menu …

WordPress Menu: Appearance > Widgets

In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to an ‘Active Widgets’ location …

WordPress Plugin - Currency Converter

Configure the widget options as shown below (add the currency codes you would like displaying on your widget separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to save your settings …

WordPress Plugin - Currency Conversion

The currency converter tool will now show on the sidebar menu with the options you have selected …

WP Plugin - Currency Converter

Additional Plugin Notes

This section contains additional information about using the 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 field.

So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …

WordPress Plugin - Currency Converter

Separates all your prices using a forward slash as you can see in the example below …

WordPress Plugin - Currency Converter

If you modify the symbol and resave your plugin settings …

WordPress Plugin - Currency Conversion

Your website visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …

WP Plugin - Currency Converter

E-Commerce Software Integration

As mentioned earlier, the plugin integrates with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce and Shopp …

WP Plugin - Currencyr

(image sourced from Currencyr plugin website)

And there you have it! Now you know how to easily add a currency converter to your e-commerce website.

To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:

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