Do you plan to sell products online to an international market? If so, then you may want to consider providing your web visitors with currency conversion.
Currency converting tools let your prospects have the price of an international currency transaction converted into their local currency when purchasing products online. It also lets your customers view the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their local currency.
One great benefit of displaying currency conversion is that it allows your customers to view and understand prices in foreign countries in their own local currency, and makes it easier for customers to calculate their costs and expenses.
If your site is built with WordPress, it’s simple to add a currency conversion plugin to your WP website, allowing your visitors to quickly understand the cost of your products.
Currencyr – Free Currency Converting Plugin For WP Web Sites
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a unique and attractive converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free to install and use on your web site.
Some of the many useful features of this plugin include:
- In-line conversion tool
- Supports various exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Open Exchange Rates and FoxRates
- Support database cache driven for fast response
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Supports integration with various e-store plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Can detect local currency automatically
- Supports full translations
Important: The Currencyr plugin requires PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed on your server. Alternatively, ask your web host to upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WordPress admin area by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking “Install Now” …
Once you have installed and activated the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your dashboard area …
The plugin settings page provides several configuration settings …
For example, you can choose a base currency from the ‘Base Currency’ drop-down menu if you prefer to use something other than the default option ’US Dollar’ …
You can choose 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 FoxRate or Google Finance …
Note: If you choose ‘Open Exchange Rates’ as your provider, an API (Application Programming Interface) is required …
You can choose how frequently you want the currency exchange rates to be updated by selecting an option from the ‘Update Rates’ drop-down menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which is an open-source library of Javascript code that lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (e.g. WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to change the jQuery settings, just ignore this section …
Edit the remainder of the settings to suit your preferences and click Save Changes when done …
Once you have configured your settings, you can add currency conversion to any WordPress page using a shortcode.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, ZAR, etc …) in the Currencyr plugin.
Plugin Shortcodes
You can easily add currency conversion to pages, posts and widgets without touching code 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 retail your product on your site for a set amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would like to display this amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your page.
To do this, just add the shortcode below into your post or page …
Note: You can also insert amounts in dollars and cents (for example, 89.95, 79.45, 149.00, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how your shortcode should look once you have added it to your page or post …
After publishing your information, your currency conversion will then appear like this …
Using the same example, let’s also convert the same amount into multiple currencies.
To do this, use the shortcode shown below (you can add as many currency symbols as you like separated by vertical pipes) …
You can see how the shortcode appears when added to your content …
After publishing your page, the converted currency amounts will then appear like this …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the end of this tutorial to learn how to change the currency separator symbol with the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s suppose that you want to specify a different base currency than the one set as your default.
For example, say you have specified 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 …
Here’s how the shortcode looks when you add it to your content …
After publishing the post, your currency conversion will then appear like this …
Plugin Widget
You can also insert currency conversion into your site’s sidebar section using the Currencyr widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, select Appearance > Widgets from your WordPress dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to an Active Widgets area …
Configure the widget settings as shown in the example below (add the currency codes you would like to display on your widget separated by a comma), and click Save to save your settings …
The currency converter tool will now show on the sidebar with the settings you have selected …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional information about using the Currencyr plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin lets you specify the symbol to display as the currency separator when using multiple currencies.
You can select a different symbol in the Multiple Separator settings field.
So, for example, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your currency amounts using the forward slash as shown below …
If you select another symbol and resave your settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Integration
As stated earlier, the plugin integrates with various WP-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(above image sourced from Currencyr plugin website)
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily add a currency converter to your WordPress web site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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