Do you sell goods and services online internationally? If so, then it’s a great idea to think about providing users with currency conversion.
Currency converting tools let your visitors have the cost of an international currency amount translated to their local currency at the point of sale. It also allows visitors and customers to see the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their own local currency.
One great benefit of putting currency conversion is that it allows your customers to view and understand prices in foreign countries in their own local currency, and makes it easier for purchasers to work out their costs and expenses.
If your site is built using WordPress, it’s really simple to add currency conversion using a plugin to WordPress, allowing your customers to quickly understand the cost of your goods.
Currencyr – WP Free Currency Converter
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WordPress plugin with a unique and attractive converter tooltip. And, it’s completely free!
Some of the many features of this great plugin include the following:
- Inline conversion tool
- Supports various exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Open Exchange Rates and FoxRates
- Supports Shortcodes
- Currency table and converter widget
- Supports integration with various online store plugins such as WooCommerce and Shopp.
- Automatic local currency determination
- Supports full translations
Important: The Currencyr plugin requires your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed. Alternatively, ask your webhosting company to upgrade your PHP server installation.
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You can install the plugin from your WP admin area by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking “Install Now” …
When you have installed and activated the plugin, you can visit the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your WordPress dashboard menu …
The plugin settings page offers you a number of configuration settings …
For example, you can choose a base currency from the Base Currency drop-down menu. The default currency is ’United States Dollar’ …
You can choose which data provider you want to use from a drop-down menu. The default provider is Yahoo Finance, but you can also select another option, like FoxRate or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose Open Exchange Rates as your provider, you will need an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can select how frequently you want to update the exchange rates by selecting an option from the ‘Update Rates’ drop-down 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 (such as WordPress plugins).
Unless you have a reason to modify the jQuery settings, leave this option alone …
Edit the rest of the plugin settings to suit your own needs and don’t forget to click the ‘Save Changes’ button when you have finished configuring all of your options …
After you have finished configuring your settings, you can add currency conversion to all of your WordPress pages using shortcodes.
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.
Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to pages, posts and widgets without touching code 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 sell a product for a fixed price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would like to show your amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your product sales page.
All you need to do is add the following shortcode to your post or page …
Note: You can also insert pricing in dollars and cents (e.g. 165.49, 22.00, 129.10, etc …)
The example below shows how your shortcode should look after being inserted into a post …
When your page or post has been published, your currency conversion will then appear like this …
Using this example, let’s now display the same price into different currency formats.
To do this, use the shortcode below (add as many currency symbols as you like by using vertical pipes) …
The example below now shows how the shortcode looks when inserted into a page …
Once the page or post has been published, the currency conversion will then appear like this …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol with this plugin.
Now, suppose you want to use a different base currency than the one selected as your default.
For example, if you have specified 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 …
The screenshot below now shows how the above shortcode appears when inserted into a post …
After publishing your post, your converted currency amounts will then display as shown below …
Using The Plugin Widget
You can also add a currency converter to your website’s sidebar using the plugin’s widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar menu, select Appearance > Widgets from your WP user admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to the Active Widgets location …
Configure the widget options as shown below (add any currency codes you would like to display on your widget separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to save your settings …
Your currency conversion tool will now appear on your website’s sidebar with the options 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 section.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by a forward slash as you can see in the screenshot below …
If you change the symbol and resave your plugin settings …
Your web visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Integration
As described earlier, the Currencyr plugin can be integrated with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins like WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: plugin site)
And there you have it! Now you can go and easily add a currency converter to your WordPress website.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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