Rare – Multi-Purpose WordPress Theme

Rare and the problem of starting with too many options

Anyone building a site for a small business, a portfolio or a blog tends to run into two extremes: themes built for a single sector that don't fit, or huge themes that allow everything and end up with a half-finished site. Rare, by Visualmodo, is one of the latter: a multi-purpose theme that works as a starting point for a blog, a business site, a store or a portfolio.

The trap with this kind of theme is not what it lacks but what it has in excess. Every decision about colour, typography and layout stays open, and anyone who buys without a plan ends up tweaking for weeks. Rare comes with pre-designed layouts and templates and a broad options panel for colours and fonts. Use it the other way round: decide first which pages you need and what image you want to project, and only touch what is essential.

Import a demo and trim it down: how to work with Rare

Rare lets you import a full demo with one click, including its content, widgets and settings. It is most useful if you are starting from scratch: you see the site already built and replace texts and images instead of building from a blank page.

• Drag-and-drop page builder: to put pages together without writing code, so you can handle it yourself without depending on a developer.
• Options panel: controls the colour palette and typography from a single place, so you can adapt the demo to your brand without touching files.
• Child theme: the package includes one, useful if you plan to add your own code without losing it when the main theme changes.

Import the demo on a clean or test installation, not on a site whose content you care about: the import brings its own content and its own settings.

Store, SEO and mobile: what Rare gives you out of the box

The design is responsive and ready for retina screens, so the site adapts to desktop and mobile. To sell, Rare integrates with WooCommerce, which is a separate plugin you must install and set up yourself: products, payments, shipping and taxes are managed there, not in the theme.

The theme is built with optimized code and low load times, which helps with search ranking. But good code only clears the way: what ranks is still your content, your headings and your copy.

Rare or a niche theme? The decision before you install

Rare makes sense if you want the freedom to change direction or if you are not yet sure what kind of site you need. If your project requires something very specific (a booking system, a directory, a feature unique to one sector), check in the demo whether it covers it before deciding, because a multi-purpose theme spreads its effort across many uses. And always test it first on a copy, before putting it on a live site.

Can I use it on a WordPress.com site?

Only if you have a WordPress.com Business plan. Otherwise you need a self-hosted WordPress on your own hosting.

Why does WordPress say style.css is missing when I upload it?

Because the downloaded package contains several folders (theme files, demo, documentation) and is not uploaded whole. You have to unzip it and upload only the theme zip, not the child theme one, unless you want that as a second step.

Do I need to know how to code?

Not to build pages: the drag-and-drop page builder and the options panel cover the usual needs. Coding is only needed if you want changes beyond what they offer.

Can I use it to open an online store?

Yes, with WooCommerce installed. Rare provides the design and the integration, but setting up the store is up to you.