Stockpiling gold has seen a spike in popularity recently, thanks to economic insecurity and heavy advertising on television. First of all, gold is beautiful–gleaming and bright, appealing to the eye. Gold is also the most popular precious metal investment. Gold is a tangible asset that maintains its value even if paper money becomes worthless.

Gold is a liquid asset that can easily be converted to cash, and is a way to “ride out” the peaks and valleys of the economy. Gold is portable and accepted as currency anywhere in the world.

Here is a quick guide to buying gold online as an investment property. If you’ve been interested in learning to buy gold online but thought it was too complicated, we’re here to set you straight.

The three most popular forms of gold to own are gold coins, gold bars, and gold jewelry. Which of these three you buy for an investment will affect how you buy gold. Gold bars should be at least .995 Fine, meaning they are 99.5% pure gold. Ideally, you’d find a source for .999 Fine gold, though that isn’t always possible, especially if you’re investing in coins or jewelry.

The biggest downside to investing in gold jewelry is that part of what you’re paying for is the craftsmanship of the jewelry itself, which may not maintain its value like the gold will. Still, investing in gold jewelry can be just as profitable as investing in gold bars, as long as you don’t mind having the jewelry melted down to pure gold at some point.

Obviously, you want to own as much gold as you can afford–but the cost is not the only restriction on the amount of gold you own. Storing and protecting all that gold is going to take up a ton of space and cash in its own right–even if you store the gold outside of your own property, you’ll have to pay fees for that as well.

Gold bars come in 1 ounce, 10 ounce, and 100 ounce form–a single 100 ounce gold bar is about 6 or 7 pounds worth of gold. If you decide to buy several dozen of these 100 ounce bars, you have a huge chunk of gold and a lot of weight to heft around and protect.

No matter if you want to buy gold coins or gold bars, you’ll probably be dealing with the same online vendors. You can buy gold online from gold sellers, brokerage houses, and even banks with online precious metals sales options. How can you tell if a gold dealer is legit? Use common sense–make sure the vendor you buy from has been in business for a while. Make sure they’re certified. And you can always check the US Mint’s list of authorized gold dealers.

Gold has historically maintained a pretty constant value, adjusted for inflation–about $400 an ounce. When the economy suffers, the price of gold tends to go up for a while (a “bubble”) before falling again to historical norms. Be careful that your gold investment doesn’t come too close to the tail-end of just such a bubble.