Do you plan to sell products online to an online customer base? If so, you may want to consider providing your prospects with currency conversion.
Currency converting software allows your prospects to have the price of a foreign currency amount converted to their home currency when purchasing or checking out products online. It also allows visitors and customers to see the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their own home currency.
The obvious benefit of putting currency conversion on your site is that it allows visitors to view and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own local currency, and makes it easier for customers to work out their costs and expenses.
If your site is built with WordPress, it’s really easy and simple to add currency conversion using a plugin to currency conversion to your site via a plugin, allowing your site visitors to quickly and easily work out the cost of your goods.
WP Currency Conversion Plugin – Currencyr
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a visually attractive converter tooltip. And, it’s 100% free!
Plugin features include the following:
- Inline converter
- Supports various exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Google & European Central Bank
- Support database cache driven for fast response
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Supports integration with various e-store plugins such as WooCommerce & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Can determine local currency automatically
- Full language translation support
Important: The Currencyr plugin requires PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed on your server. Ask your web host to upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the plugin from your WordPress dashboard by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins screen and clicking the ”Install Now” button …
After you have installed and activated the plugin, you can visit the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your WordPress administration menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings page …
For example, you can select your base currency from a drop-down menu if you prefer something other than the default option ’United States Dollar’ …
Similarly, you can specify which data provider you want to use from a drop-down menu. The default option is Yahoo Finance, but you can also choose another provider, like FoxRate or Google Finance …
Note: If you choose Open Exchange Rates as your provider, you will need to obtain an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can choose how frequently you would like the currency exchange rates to update by specifying an option from the Update Rates dropdown 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 (like WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to edit the jQuery settings, you can just ignore this section …
Edit the rest of the plugin settings and click the Save Changes button when finished …
After your plugin settings have been configured, you can add currency conversion to any WP page or post using widgets.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, ZAR, etc …) in this plugin.
How To Use Currencyr Shortcodes
You can easily add currency conversion to WordPress posts, pages and widgets without touching code using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to WP pages and posts:
Let’s say that you retail an item for a set amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show your conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
All you need to do is add the shortcode below to your post or page …
Note: You can also display pricing in dollars and cents (e.g. 19.95, 22.00, 399.99, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how your shortcode looks once you have added it to a post or page …
When the page or post has been published, your currency conversion will then appear like this …
Using the same example, let’s now convert the same amount into multiple currencies.
To do this, use following shortcode (add as many currency symbols as you want by using vertical pipes) …
The screenshot below shows how the shortcode appears when inserted into a post …
After publishing your page or post, your converted currency amounts will then display as you can see below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol within the Currencyr plugin.
Now, suppose 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 e-commerce pages targeted to non-European visitors (e.g. Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
Here’s how the shortcode looks when added to a page …
After publishing your information, your currency conversion will then appear like this …
Using The Currencyr Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your website’s sidebar area using the Currencyr widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar area, select Appearance > Widgets in the WP admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to an Active Widgets area …
Configure the widget options as shown in the screenshot below (add the currency codes you would like displaying on your widget separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to save your settings …
Your currency converter tool will now appear on your site’s sidebar with the options you have specified …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional information about using the Currencyr plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin allows you to specify the symbol to display as the currency separator when using several currencies.
You can select a different 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 shown below …
If you enter another symbol and update your plugin settings …
Your web visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Platform Integration
As mentioned earlier, the plugin can be integrated with a number of WP-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image sourced from Currencyr plugin site)
And there you have it! 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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