<human>: Can you condense the text into a few key points?

Hi there, a friend and I have conceived an idea for a website that we believe will be very successful if it comes to fruition. The only trouble is we have no idea where to begin patenting our idea so we can work on it as ours alone. We are not so concerned about actually creating the website as we pretty much have that covered but we are totally stuck for a course of action and what to do first. Do we patent/copyright the idea first (which seems to cost a fair amount and involve a great deal of paperwork) or just begin creating the website and patent it later on? Should we try and find a local lawyer to guide us in the right direction? Neither of us have any experience in this field so any help whatsoever is appreciated!
<bot>: have good idea for website/business, want to make it ours so nobody else does it first, no idea where to even begin.