This study aimed to quantitatively develop realistic quasi-static loading protocols for simulating bidirectional cyclic actions and axial load variation on building columns in a way that is representative of an actual response during earthquake ground excitation. A case-study building was subjected to a suite of 15 ground motions that were scaled to design basis earthquake (DBE) and maximum considered earthquake (MCE) levels of a typical region of low-to-moderate seismicity. The results showed that the displacement path of a building column under earthquake actions is generally in the form of elliptical loops of various orientations due to the phase difference in the sinusoidal displacements in the two orthogonal axes of the column. Accordingly, this work proposes a bidirectional lateral loading protocol that simplifies and generalizes the displacement path of the column in the form of elliptical loops of four different orientations. Similarly, the patterns of axial load variation in columns were also studied in detail, which led to the development of separate axial load variation protocols for external and internal columns of a building, which can be applied in tandem with the bidirectional lateral loading protocol. The paper concludes with a brief overview of the results of two reinforced concrete (RC) column specimens, which were experimentally tested using the proposed bidirectional loading protocol.