Are you planning to sell products online to an online customer base? If so, then it’s a good idea to think about providing users with the convenience of currency conversion on your website.
Currency converting tools let your prospects translate international currency amounts into their home currency at the purchase or checkout phase. It also allows your visitors and customers to view the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their own local currency.
The obvious benefit of adding currency conversion to your site is that it allows your customers to view and understand prices in foreign countries in their own local currency, and makes it easier for visitors to work out their costs and expenses.
If your site is built with WordPress, you can add currency conversion using a plugin to currency conversion to your WP web site using a plugin, allowing your customers to easily understand the cost of your goods.
Currencyr – WP Currency Converter
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WP plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. And, it’s also free!
Some of the features of this plugin include:
- Inline conversion tool
- Supports various exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Open Exchange Rates and European Central Bank
- Supports Shortcodes
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Supports integration with various online shopping plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatic local currency detection
- Full language translation support
Important: This plugin needs PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP. Ask your web hosting company to upgrade your PHP server installation.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WordPress admin area by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking “Install Now” …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your dashboard area …
This takes you to the plugin settings page …
For example, you can select a base currency from the ‘Base Currency’ dropdown menu. The default option is (‘USD’) …
Similarly, you can choose any supported data provider from a dropdown menu. The default option is Yahoo Finance, but you can choose one of the other options, like European Central Bank or Google Finance …
Note: If you select ‘Open Exchange Rates’ as your provider, an API (Application Programming Interface) is required …
You can specify how often you would like the currency exchange rates to update by choosing an option from the ‘Update Rates’ drop-down menu …
The 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 WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to edit the jQuery settings, leave this option alone …
Edit the rest of the plugin settings and remember to click ‘Save Changes’ when finished …
After your plugin settings have been configured, you can add currency conversion to WP pages using shortcodes and widgets.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, ZAR, etc …) in this plugin.
Plugin Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into posts, pages and widgets without having to edit your web templates 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 goods online for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would like to display the amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
To display this information, you simply need to add the shortcode below into your post or page …
Note: You can also add amounts in dollars and cents (e.g. 89.95, 189.00, 544.97, etc …)
The example below shows how the shortcode looks after you have inserted it into the post …
After publishing the post or page, your currency conversion will display like this …
Using this example, let’s also display the same amount into multiple currencies.
To do this, use following shortcode (add as many currency symbols as you like by using vertical pipes) …
The screenshot below now shows how the shortcode appears when you add it to a page …
After publishing your page, your converted currency amounts will then display as you can see below …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol in this plugin.
Now, let’s say that you would like to select a different base currency than the one set as the default.
For example, say you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your site targeted to visitors in countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
Here’s how the shortcode appears when you add it to a page …
Once your post or page has been published, your currency conversion will then appear like this …
Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your site’s sidebar using a widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar menu, select Appearance > Widgets in your WordPress user admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to the Active Widgets location …
Configure the widget options as shown in the screenshot below (add the currency codes you would like to display on your widget 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
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 several currencies.
You can change the symbol in the ‘Multiple Separator’ settings field.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your currency amounts with a forward slash as you can see in the example below …
If you modify this symbol and update your settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
e-Commerce Software Integration
As stated earlier, the Currencyr plugin can be integrated with various 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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