Issue Extending Display over 2 Monitors

i have connected two monitors to my laptop and want to extend the display over the two monitors and leave the laptop display blank. I have connected the monitors via a HDMI splitter as there is only one HDMI port on the laptop. Both the monitors are connected throught the splitter on two outputs and the 1 input (from the Laptop). My issue is when i go into the display settings it shows my two monitors as 1, so if i entend my laptop display it will extend to monitor 1 but monitor will just duplicate monitor 1. Is there any way i can fix this issue where windows will recogonise the 2 Monitors individually so i can extend the display over them ?? Is the Splitter the issue and causing them to be shown as 1 ?? what other alternatives do i have to display 2 Monitors via HDMI with only 1 HDMI output port ??

Thanks in advance for any responses