Online share dealing allows individuals to trade in stocks and shares at a much lower cost than was once possible. You no longer need to seek out a specialist stock-broker in your local area, as there are plenty available online who will offer a good service. Before thinking about which online share dealing service is best for you, you'll need to consider what it is that you're looking for.

The first thing that you'll need to consider is what you're willing to pay for each trade. This may seem like a simple question to answer - after all, everyone wants to pay the least amount possible! It's slightly more complex than that though, since the amount that you pay will be affected by how often (and how many shares) you trade. So you need to think about how often you'll be using the online brokers and how many shares you'll be trading.

Will you want to be in regular contact with your brokers and will you have a lot of questions to ask them? If you think that you'll be in regular contact then you'll be looking for a broker that's easy to contact, preferrably by phone or in person. That being the case, you'll need to make sure that any online organisation are easy to contact. If they hide away their telephone number on their web site then maybe they're not going to be right for you.