Steel water storage tanks are sensitive and strategic structures in the oil, gas, and water supply industries, making their seismic performance particularly important. These steel fluid-storage structures require innovative solutions to improve their performance against earthquakes. This study investigates different locations for installing yielding elastoplastic dampers to control tank vibrations. The dynamic response of a cylindrical steel tank, 80% filled with water, was evaluated through nonlinear time-history analyses modeled in ABAQUS. Four configurations were examined: the undamped baseline, a damper concentrated at the base support, an X-braced damper system, and a peripheral ring-braced damper system, under the El Centro, Tabas, and Kobe earthquake records with different frequency contents. Results showed that tank seismic response depends more on frequency content and earthquake velocity pulses than on peak ground acceleration. Due to its higher intensity, the Tabas earthquake produced responses 66–124% greater than El Centro. Kobe generated the lowest base shear but the largest displacement among the three earthquakes. The ring-braced damper configuration provided the optimal balance between force and deformation, with the smallest increase in base shear and acceptable displacement control, making it the most robust configuration against seismic uncertainties. In contrast, the base damper amplified responses by altering the structure’s natural period and approaching the dominant earthquake frequency. Although the X-braced system reduced displacement, its implementation complexity and increased base shear made it the second-best option. The findings confirm that damper placement, based on Housner’s effective mass theory, is more important than the number of dampers, and that seismic design of storage tanks should consider a suite of ground motions.