But enough about the average investor.

What about your unique needs?

I'm happy to report that two of the media surveyors have taken steps to customize your search for the perfect broker. Money.com offers a two-part online questionnaire to help you home in on a broker that matches your investing style. It's somewhat simplistic but a nod in the right direction. SmartMoney.com goes one better by letting you weight the importance of nine different factors before it ranks the brokers for you. It also features a clever "broker meter" that compares the speed of downloading pages at each broker site.

These tools can help you narrow the field, but as in any matchmaking endeavor, selecting an online broker comes down to the comfort of the match. Do you like the look and feel of the site? Is it easy to navigate? Does it have the tools you want and need? Would you want to spend some time there? Is it really you?

Keep in mind, you don't have to settle for just one broker.

In fact, you shouldn't settle for just one broker. Markets are very fast these days, and very volatile. On a high-volume day, even the best broker's phone lines can ring busy for hours on end, and a systems crash can lock you out of the market at any time. The only safeguard is to open more than one trading account.

So read the surveys, all of them. But don't take those number one ratings too seriously. After all, the only No. 1 broker is one who never loses your order, never gives you a busy signal, never puts you on hold, and never crashes when you want to make a trade.

I have two online brokers, and I'm still looking for number one.