In this article, a modified direct method is presented for estimating the seismic response of structures equipped with nonlinear viscous dampers subjected to near-fault pulse-like ground motions. In this method, the nonlinear response of structure is estimated in two steps, which is based on obtaining the effective damping of the structure. In the first step, the supplemental damping ratio due to the added nonlinear viscous dampers is calculated while the ductility demand and effective damping ratio for the nonlinear structure are obtained in the second step. As a new attempt, the ductility demand are modified by applying explicit equations with respect to the pulse period and then structural response are estimated. In order to evaluate the proposed method, three reinforced concrete structures equipped with nonlinear viscous damper have been considered. The results obtained based on the proposed method are compared with those of the nonlinear response time history analyses as the reference responses. The results show that the proposed method improves the seismic demand estimates by an average of 40% compared to conventional two step method when the studied structures subjected to near-fault pulse-like records.