hello, this kind of question may be asked before, but i want specific answer to my query and probably from the webmasters. I have a unique idea about starting a website. but as everyone knows ideas are copied over internet easily, so before i start my website, i want to know almost all methods that i can use to promote my website - paid/free, so my site will strike at first and will get the maximum users before a clone is developed.
link building, article writing, couple of forums giving answers, email marketting, mobile sms database, adwords, video sharing sites, community sites.
Advertisement is your solution use advertisment program like google adwords , yahoo marketing you will get a good amount of traffic
Don't worry too much about clones, if someone is blatantly stealing/copying content/designs from you, file a DMCA or scare him off with a C&D letter. dmohan listed quite a few options for advertising your site, something else I'd suggest you is press releases with the unlimited distribution option (that will cost money though but you can write as many releases as you want, so just pay an article writer to send out new PR's every day and this shouldn't only get you listed in google news frequently but it will also get you some valuable backlinks). But honestly, if you want to make every form of advertising out there work for you and your new idea/project, you have to have quite some budget. It might be advisable to give out a free sample of your service to around 100 people in a private forum and optimize your salesfunnel/monetization until the point that you have a positive ROI. That way, it's quite unlikely some of those 100 peeps will copy you and once you've optimized your process, you can go out there and pay for traffic a lot more confidently.
do not worry about clones. you web site has to be REALLY noticed before any clones developed, but than it is already too late there are plenty twitter-alikes, but who cares?
if your site is all that, and you are the first one up. You will have the advantage, no one can copy you exactly so set your self apart from the rest clean well thought out and functional, is all you can do. Plus pay out the but to blast it every where, or get a bunch of friends to help you for a week.