Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce web site or making goods available for sale worldwide? If so, then here’s a good idea: think about providing your potential customers with a currency conversion service.
Currency converting software lets your site visitors translate foreign currency prices to their home currency at the point of sale. It also allows your visitors and customers to see the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their local currency.
The obvious advantage of putting currency conversion is that it lets your customers see and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own home currency, and makes it easier for customers to calculate their costs and expenses.
If your site is powered by WordPress, it’s really simple to add currency conversion via a plugin to currency conversion to your WordPress website or blog via a plugin, allowing your site visitors to easily perform currency conversions to determine the cost of your goods.
WordPress Currency Converting Plugin – Currencyr
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a unique and attractive converter tooltip. It’s also free!
Some of the features of this great plugin include the following:
- Inline conversion tool
- Supports several exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Google & European Central Bank
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Can be integrated with a number of online store plugins like WooCommerce & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatic local currency determination
- Full language translation support
Note: The Currencyr plugin requires your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP on your server. Ask your web host to upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WP admin area by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins area and clicking “Install Now” …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can get to the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your dashboard area …
The plugin settings screen provides various configuration options …
For example, you can select your base currency from a dropdown menu. The default base currency is ‘USD’ …
You can choose a data provider from the dropdown menu in the Provider section. The default option is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can select another option, such as European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose Open Exchange Rates, you will need to enter an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can select how often you want to update the exchange rates by specifying 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 (e.g. WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to change the jQuery settings, you can simply ignore this option …
Edit the remainder of the settings and don’t forget to click Save Changes when done …
Once your plugin settings have been configured, you can start adding currency conversion to WP posts or pages using shortcodes and widgets.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, JPY, etc …) in this plugin.
Using Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to WordPress pages, posts and widgets without having to edit 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 retail an item on your website for a fixed amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would like to show the amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your product information page.
All you need to do is insert the shortcode below into your page content …
Note: You can also insert pricing in dollars and cents (for example, 175.00, 197.00, 544.97, etc …)
The example below shows how the shortcode should look when added to the post or page …
Once the page has been published, your converted currency will display as shown below …
Using the same example, let’s also translate the same price into multiple currency formats.
To do this, use following shortcode (you can add as many currency symbols as you want by using vertical pipes) …
The example below shows how the above shortcode looks when inserted into your content …
After publishing the page or post, your currency conversion will then display like this …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol with the Currencyr plugin.
Now, suppose you would like to use a different base currency than the one you have set as the 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 (for example, Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The example below shows how the above shortcode looks when you add it to your content …
Once the post has been published, the converted currency will then display as you can see in the example below …
How To Use The Currencyr Widget
You can also add a currency converter to your website’s sidebar using a widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, select Appearance > Widgets in the WP admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to an ‘Active Widgets’ location …
Configure the widget options as shown in the example below (add currency codes separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to save your settings …
Your currency converter tool will now appear on the sidebar menu with the options 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 change the symbol in the ‘Multiple Separator’ settings field.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your prices using the forward slash as shown below …
If you enter another symbol and update your settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
Integration With e-Commerce Software
As described earlier, the Currencyr plugin can be integrated with a number of WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(above image sourced from Currencyr plugin website)
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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