Are you planning to set up an e-commerce site, or sell goods and services to a global audience? If so, then here’s a great idea: think about providing your potential customers with currency conversion.
Currency conversion software tools let your visitors have the price of a foreign currency amount converted into their home currency when purchasing products online. It also allows customers to view the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their local currency.
One benefit of adding currency conversion to your site is that it lets customers view and understand prices in foreign countries in their own local currency, and makes it easier for visitors to calculate their costs and expenses.
Fortunately, if you are a WordPress user, it’s really simple to add a currency conversion plugin to WordPress, allowing your site visitors to quickly and easily understand the cost of your goods.
WordPress Currency Converter – Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a unique and attractive converter tooltip. It’s also free to install and use on your WordPress website or blog.
The Currencyr currency conversion WP plugin features:
- Inline converter
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Open Exchange Rates & European Central Bank
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Supports integration with various e-store plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically determines local currency
- Full language translation support
Important: The Currencyr plugin needs your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP. Alternatively, ask your webhosting provider to update your PHP server installation if necessary.
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You can install the plugin from your WordPress dashboard by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking “Install Now” …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can access the plugin’s settings page by selecting Currencyr from your admin area …
This takes you to the plugin settings page …
For example, you can select a base currency from the ‘Base Currency’ drop-down menu if you want something other than the default option ‘USD’ …
Similarly, you can select a data provider from a drop-down menu. The default selection is Yahoo Finance, but you can choose another option, like 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 choose how frequently you want the currency exchange rates to be updated by specifying an option from the Update Rates dropdown menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which allows web developers to add things like animation effects to web applications (such as WP plugins).
If you have no reason to edit the jQuery settings, leave them as they are …
Edit the remainder of the plugin settings and don’t forget to click Save Changes when finished …
Once you have finished configuring your plugin settings, you can start adding currency conversion to any of your WordPress website’s pages and posts using a shortcode.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, CAD, etc …) in this plugin.
Shortcodes
You can easily add currency conversion to WordPress pages, posts and widgets without touching your web templates using shortcodes.
Here are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to your WordPress posts and pages:
Let’s say that you are selling goods online for a fixed price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would like to display the amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your product sales page.
All you need to do is insert the following shortcode into your post or page …
Note: You can also add pricing in dollars and cents (for example, 19.95, 79.45, 129.10, etc …)
The example below shows how the above shortcode looks once you have inserted it into your product page …
After publishing the content, the converted currency amount will then appear like this …
Using this example, let’s also display the same amount into different currency formats.
To do this, use following shortcode (you can add as many currency symbols as you like separated by vertical pipes) …
The screenshot below shows how the above shortcode appears when added to a post …
After publishing your content, your converted currency will then appear like this …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol within this plugin.
Now, let’s say that you want to specify a different base currency than the one you have set as your default.
For example, if you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your website targeted to non-European visitors (e.g. Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The example below shows how the above shortcode appears when added to a post …
Once your post has been published, your converted currency amounts will then appear as shown below …
How To Use The Currencyr Widget
You can also insert currency conversion into your website’s sidebar menu using the Currencyr widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar area, select Appearance > Widgets from your WP dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to an Active Widgets location …
Configure the widget settings as shown below (add currency codes separated by a comma), and click Save to save your settings …
The currency converter tool will now show on your website’s sidebar with the settings you have selected …
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 section.
So, for example, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by the forward slash as you can see in the screenshot below …
If you specify another symbol and resave your plugin settings …
Your web visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
Integration With e-Commerce Platforms
As mentioned earlier, the Currencyr plugin integrates with various WP-compatible e-commerce plugins like WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(above image sourced from Currencyr plugin site)
And there you have it! Now you know how to easily add currency conversion to your WordPress website.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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