Do you plan to set up an e-commerce website with WordPress, or sell goods internationally? If so, then you may want to think about providing your prospects with the convenience of currency conversion on your website.
Currency converting software tools let your customers have the price of an international currency amount translated into their home currency at the point of sale. It also allows your visitors to 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 to your website is that it lets visitors view and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own home currency, making it it easier for purchasers to calculate their costs and expenses.
Fortunately, if you are a WordPress user, you can add a currency converter to currency conversion to your web site using a plugin, allowing your visitors to quickly and easily perform currency conversions to determine the cost of your goods.
Currencyr – Currency Converting Plugin For WordPress
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a visually attractive converter tooltip. It’s also free to install and use on your website.
Plugin features include:
- Inline converter
- Supports various exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Google, Open Exchange Rates, European Central Bank and FoxRates
- Support database cache driven for fast response
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Can be integrated with various e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically detects local currency
- Full translation support
Important: This plugin needs 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 host to upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the plugin from your WordPress admin area by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins screen and clicking the “Install Now” button …
When you have installed and activated the plugin, you can visit the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your WordPress administration navigation menu …
The plugin settings area provides several configuration options …
For example, you can choose a base currency from a drop-down menu. The default currency is ’United States Dollar’ …
You can specify which data provider you want to use from the dropdown menu in the Provider section. The default option is Yahoo Finance, but you can also select one of the other options, such as European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you select Open Exchange Rates, 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 specifying an option from the ‘Update Rates’ drop-down menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which is an open-source library of Javascript code that allows web developers to add things like animation effects to web applications (such as WP plugins).
Unless you have a reason to change the jQuery settings, you can just ignore this option …
Configure the remainder of the settings according to your needs and don’t forget to click ‘Save Changes’ when finished …
When you have finished configuring your settings, you can start adding currency conversion to your WordPress pages and posts using shortcodes.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, CAD, etc …) with this plugin.
Plugin Shortcodes
You can easily add currency conversion to posts, pages and widgets with no web coding skills or knowledge 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 a product on your website for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would like to show the price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
All you need to do is insert the shortcode below into your page content …
Note: You can also display prices in dollars and cents (for example, 188.35, 47.00, 149.00, etc …)
The example below shows how the shortcode will look after being inserted into a page or post …
Once the information has been published, your converted currency will appear like this …
Using the above example, let’s also display the same amount into multiple currencies.
To do this, use following shortcode (add as many currency symbols as you want separated by vertical pipes) …
The screenshot below shows how the above shortcode appears when you add it to a page …
Once the post or page has been published, the converted currency amounts will then appear like this …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol with the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s suppose that you would like to select 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 e-commerce pages targeted to customers in countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
Here’s how the shortcode appears when added to a post …
After publishing your content, the currency conversion will then display like this …
Using The Plugin Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your website or blog’s sidebar section using a widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar area, choose Appearance > Widgets from your WP admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to an ‘Active Widgets’ location …
Configure the widget options as shown below (add currency codes separated by a comma), and click Save to save your settings …
Your currency converter will now appear on your site’s sidebar with the settings you have specified when configuring the widget …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful information about using the Currencyr plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin lets you specify the symbol 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, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your currency values using a forward slash as shown below …
If you change this symbol and resave your plugin settings …
Your web visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Integration
As stated earlier, the Currencyr plugin can be integrated with a number of WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(above image sourced from plugin website)
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily add a currency converter to your WordPress site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now