Publishing content is not just important for bloggers and publishers. Creating quality content regularly has become vital to the success of any business online. Business of all sizes and scales are using content marketing techniques such as blogging, article writing, creating reports and eBooks, and more to attract customers and build brand awareness.

However, creating content can be a challenging task. It is very easy to run out of ideas and new topics to write about. The ability to uncover great content relevant to your niche is important for research as well as to get inspiration and ideas about new topics to write about.

Here are 5 excellent online services that help you with this research. You can take advantage of these tools to explore new content relevant to your niche. They can be a very useful asset if you find yourself struggling to find quality content for your website or blog.

Popular Well Known Tools to Explore Content:

1. Google Reader

Google Reader is a must use tool for all publishers whether you are a blogger or if you publish content as part of your Internet marketing efforts. It is feed reader that allows to you subscribe to blog updates. It is a very effective way to keep up to date with the latest content on the blogs you follow and far more effective and efficient than exploring each blog individually.

2. Technorati

Technorati is the leading authority for blog ranking. It tracks the influence and ranking of millions blogs from all over the world. You can also use Technorati to search for influential blogs as well the latest posts on the blogs it tracks.

I personally prefer to use blog search to identify high authority blogs in my niche and visit the blogs directly for accessing content. I find this to be a very effective way of exploring quality content. It also offers a far wider choice than Technorati’s post search feature where the results are fairly limited.

3: Google Alerts

Google Alerts is another free tool by Google that you can use to receive instant notifications whenever a topic of your interest is mentioned on any website or blog. It can be useful in several situations. You can use to track any topic that is of interest to you or your business or to track a breaking story so you can write about it. It is also useful for reputation management and you can use to track brand mentions.

4. Stumble Upon

Stumble Upon is one of the most popular social bookmarking sites used to share links to interesting content on the web with others. It is equally popular for exploring new content and offers a unique and fun way to discover random content based on your interests.

StumbleUpon keeps track of pages recommended by its users and delivers it on to other users who have a similar interest, one page at a time. Each time you click on the Stumble button, you are taken to a random page based on your interest.

Lesser Known Tools to Explore Content:

In addition to the above services, I have also decided to include the following relatively new and lesser know tools for exploring content. These are very useful services and can be equally effective.

5. Prismatic

This is a new tool that I recently found out about on a blog that I follow. Prismatic is a free service that will deliver content to you based on the interests you select.

It has a few unique features that makes it different to other content discovery methods in this list. It delivers personal newsfeed by connecting with one of your social networks and learning about your interests. It is easy to discover new niche interests by tapping on interest links and exploring from the main menu. It also makes it easy to share stories and interests with your friends.

6. List.Ly

List.Ly is a free tool that allows users to maintain and share lists with others. It is a new service that is used by professional and personal users  to create lists on anything ranging from top Internet marketing services and best ways to market on social media to top home decoration tips. In addition to its usefulness as a content marketing tool, it is also very effective for exploring list content on any topic.