Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce website or making products available for sale internationally? If so, then it’s a good idea to think about providing users with currency conversion.
Currency converting tools let your customers have the cost of an international currency amount translated into their local currency when purchasing products online. It also allows visitors to see the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their local currency.
One great advantage of putting currency conversion is that it lets your customers view and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own home currency, and makes it easier for customers to work out their costs and expenses.
If your site is powered by WordPress, it’s easy and simple to add a currency conversion plugin to WordPress, allowing your visitors to quickly and easily work out the cost of your goods.
Currencyr – Currency Converter For WordPress
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WP plugin with a visually attractive converter tooltip. And, it’s completely free to install and use on your web site.
The Currencyr useful WP plugin features:
- In-line converter
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, such as Google and FoxRates
- Supports Shortcodes
- Currency table and converter widget
- Supports integration with a number of e-store plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically determines local currency
- Supports full language translations
Note: This 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 WP dashboard by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins screen and clicking “Install Now” …
Once you have installed and activated the plugin, you can get to the plugin’s settings screen by selecting Currencyr from your WP dashboard navigation menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings page …
For example, you can choose a base currency from the ‘Base Currency’ drop-down menu. The default option is (‘USD’) …
Similarly, you can specify a data provider from a drop-down menu. The default provider is Yahoo Finance, but you can choose one of the other options, such as European Central Bank or Google Finance …
Note: If you choose ‘Open Exchange Rates’, an API (Application Programming Interface) will be required …
You can select how frequently you want to update the currency exchange rates by selecting an option from the Update Rates dropdown menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (like WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to change the jQuery settings, just ignore this setting …
Configure the remainder of the plugin settings and don’t forget to click Save Changes when finished …
After you have configured your settings, you can easily add currency conversion to any WP page or post using shortcodes and widgets.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, CAD, etc …) in the Currencyr plugin.
How To Use Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into WP pages, posts and widgets with no programming skills or knowledge using shortcodes.
Here are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to your WP pages and posts:
Let’s say that you are selling a product for a fixed price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show the price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
To do this, you simply need to add the shortcode below into your post or page …
Note: You can also insert prices in dollars and cents (for example, 19.95, 37.95, 400.00, etc …)
The example below shows how the above shortcode will look after you have added it to your product page …
Once the page has been published, the converted currency will appear like this …
Using the same example, let’s also translate the same price into multiple currency formats.
To do this, use following shortcode (add as many currency symbols as you like separated by vertical pipes) …
The screenshot below now shows how the above shortcode looks when inserted into a page …
Once the post has been published, your converted currency amounts will then display like this …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol in this plugin.
Now, suppose you want to select a different base currency than the one you have selected as your default.
For example, if you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your e-commerce pages targeted to non-European customers (like Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
Here’s how the shortcode looks when added to your content …
After publishing your page, the currency conversion will then display like this …
Currencyr Widget
You can also add a currency converter to your website or blog’s sidebar menu using the plugin’s widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar area, select Appearance > Widgets in your WordPress admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to the Active Widgets area …
Configure the widget options as shown below (add currency codes separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to update your settings …
The currency converter will now appear on your website’s sidebar menu with the settings you have specified …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional information about using the plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin lets you specify the symbol to display as the currency separator when using multiple currencies.
You can change the symbol in the Multiple Separator settings section.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your currency values with a forward slash as you can see in the example below …
If you modify the symbol and update your plugin settings …
Your web visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Software Integration
As stated earlier, the plugin integrates with a number of WP-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: Currencyr plugin website)
Congratulations! Now you can go and 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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