Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce web site or selling goods worldwide? If so, you may want to think about providing your potential customers with the convenience of currency conversion on your website.
Currency converting software lets your visitors have the cost of a foreign currency transaction converted to their home currency at the point of sale. It also lets your customers view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their home currency.
One advantage of adding currency conversion to your website is that it lets visitors view and understand prices in foreign countries in their own local currency, and makes it easier for purchasers to calculate their costs and expenses.
Fortunately, if you are a WordPress user, you can add a currency conversion plugin to WordPress, allowing your prospective customers to easily understand the cost of your products.
Currencyr – WP Free Currency Conversion Plugin
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WordPress plugin with a unique and attractive converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free to install and use on your WP web site.
Some of the useful features of this great plugin include the following:
- Inline conversion tool
- Supports several exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Open Exchange Rates and FoxRates
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Currency table and converter widget
- Can be integrated with a number of online shopping plugins such as WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatic local currency determination
- Support for language translations
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 host to update your PHP.
***
You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WP dashboard by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins section and clicking “Install Now” …
When the plugin has been installed and activated, you can access the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your WP administration menu …
The plugin settings screen offers you many configuration options …
For example, you can select your base currency from the Base Currency drop-down menu. The default base currency is ‘United States Dollar – (USD)’ …
You can select which data provider you want to use from a drop-down menu. The default provider is Yahoo Finance, but you can also choose another option, such as European Central Bank or Google Finance …
Note: If you choose Open Exchange Rates as your provider, you will need an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can choose how often you want the exchange rates to be updated by specifying an option from the ‘Update Rates’ drop-down menu …
The 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 WP plugins).
If you have no reason to modify the jQuery settings, leave them as they are …
Configure the remainder of the plugin settings to suit your needs and don’t forget to click Save Changes when finished …
Once your plugin settings have been configured, you can easily add currency conversion to your WordPress pages using shortcodes and widgets.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, ZAR, etc …) in this plugin.
Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into WP pages, posts and widgets without having to mess with code using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to your WP posts and pages:
Let’s say that you are selling a product online for a set amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to display your price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your product information page.
All you need to do is add the shortcode below to your post or page …
Note: You can also insert amounts in dollars and cents (for example, 16.95, 197.00, 295.75, etc …)
The example below shows how your shortcode should look when inserting it into a post or page …
After publishing the page, the currency conversion will display like this …
Using the above example, let’s now convert the same price into different currencies.
To do this, use following shortcode (you can add as many currency symbols as you want by using vertical pipes) …
You can see how the above shortcode looks when added to your content …
After publishing your page, the converted currency will then appear as seen in the screenshot below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the end of this tutorial to learn how to change the currency separator symbol within this plugin.
Now, let’s say that you want to use a different base currency than the one you have set as the default.
For example, say you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your website targeted to non-European customers (for example, Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The example below shows how the above shortcode appears when inserted into your content …
After publishing your information, your converted currency amounts will then display like this …
How To Use The Plugin Widget
You can also add a currency converter to your website or blog’s sidebar using the plugin’s widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar menu, choose Appearance > Widgets in the WP user admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to an Active Widgets location …
Configure the widget options as shown in the screenshot below (add the currency codes you want to display on your widget separated by a comma), and click Save to update your settings …
The currency converter will now display on your site’s sidebar with the options you have specified …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful information about using the Currencyr plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin lets you specify a symbol of your choice to display as the currency separator when using multiple currencies.
You can select a different symbol in the ‘Multiple Separator’ settings field.
So, for example, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your currency values with the forward slash as shown below …
If you select another symbol and update your plugin settings …
Your site visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
WordPress E-Commerce
As described earlier, the plugin integrates with various WP-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, Shopp and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: Currencyr plugin website)
Congratulations! Now you can go and easily add currency conversion to your e-commerce website.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
***
"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum