Trying to add my own contentplaceholder in sharepoint 2013 masterpage

Question

hi all,
I'm new in sharepoint 2013.I'm trying to add my own contentplaceholder in sharepoint 2013 masterpage( near search textbox).  like <asp:ContentPlaceHolder ID="PlaceHolderMain" runat="server"></asp:ContentPlaceHolder> and
 <asp:Content runat="server" ContentPlaceHolderID="PlaceHolderTopMenu1">   </asp:Content> in my layout. but its not working, nothing is rendered when i refresh my page. I also tried  to add code generated
by snippet galary and put it into html page. That also did not work. can you please help me how to add my own contentplaceholder in sharepoint 2013 masterpage.

Answer 1

Thanks a lot for your response Jason, it looks like the proper way to add the Custom place holder to the top header section of the master page.
So that you know, I have created the master page by converting an HTML file in SharePoint 2013 design manager. Following the links, added following two block of code in the master page:
Following code between<mso:CustomDocumentProperties> tag of master page:
<mso:ContentPlaceHolderHashPlaceHolderTopMenu1 msdt:dt="string">87884212</mso:ContentPlaceHolderHashPlaceHolderTopMenu1>
and in body part:
<div class="container">
               <!--CS: Start PlaceHolderTopMenu1 Snippet-->
                <!--SPM:<%@Register Tagprefix="SharePoint" Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls" Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c"%>-->
                <!--MS:<SharePoint:AjaxDelta ID="DeltaPlaceHolderTopMenu1" IsMainContent="true" runat="server">-->
                <!--MS:<asp:ContentPlaceHolder ID="PlaceHolderTopMenu1" runat="server">-->
                  master page content
                <!--ME:</asp:ContentPlaceHolder>-->
                <!--ME:</SharePoint:AjaxDelta>-->
                <!--CE: End PlaceHolderTopMenu1 Snippet-->
</div>
And added the following code in layout page using that  layout page.
Following code between<mso:CustomDocumentProperties> tag of layout page:
<mso:ContentPlaceHolderHashPlaceHolderTopMenu1 msdt:dt="string">87884212</mso:ContentPlaceHolderHashPlaceHolderTopMenu1>
and  in  body part
 <!--MS:<asp:ContentPlaceHolder ID="PlaceHolderTopMenu1" runat="server">-->
         <div> Layout content </div>
         <!--ME:</asp:ContentPlaceHolder>-->
Unfortunately, the page created from the master page, is not adding any placeholder beside the search control.
Any idea what I am doing wrong?
Thanks again for your response in advance.