Layouts are buggy, which is one reason they arn't in page defaults, the second reason is, is that they are slow, third is that on page defaults just make a new html template if its going to be on every page!

Could you point me in the right direction on how to make a new html template?

No simple way to do this without getting into some html and css.

If you check out the documentation on creating a theme, it's pretty easy to add a new editable area if you're comfortable editing the html and the css.

You can copy one of the page type templates in the theme, modify the structure, upload the revised template with a new name, then add it as a new page type in the dashboard by referencing the filename as the page type "handle".

I hope this is helpful...

In your themes folder find the theme you are using and then copy the default.php (assuming) the bit you want to edit is in the default view, otherwise you might need to pull in a new header (I often do this for the home page)

Then in the default.php/header you can add a new div


Depending on where you want this to be displayed depends on where you put it
If you want to columns I would put it within body add two divs
....someone let me in the building will continue on the pc