The first quarter of 2020 saw the global spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) which has seriously affected how education institutions operate. Facing this dilemma, many colleges recourse teaching and learning activities through the online platform. A recent survey made by some scholars in China found that total online teaching weakened students’ learning motivation, and some students encountered difficulties in adaptation, low learning enthusiasm and learning weariness, which resulted in poor learning outcomes. As an effort to overcome these problems, this preliminary study examined the factors promoting and hindering students’ online English learning motivation of college students in Guangdong Province, China. A total of ten both highly and lowly motivated college students aged between 18 to 20 were invited to take part in this qualitative study whereby data was primarily obtained through semi-structured interviews. The qualitative data were analyzed via the content analysis method with an inductive approach and the consequential findings reveal that the students, their peer groups, teachers, network environment and other factors affect students’ online learning motivation in different aspects. Based on the analysis of the influencing factors, Dörnyei’s Motivational Teaching Practice (MTP) theoretical framework and relevant learning motivation theory, this paper put forward some incentive strategies to motivate and maintain the motivation of online English learning for college students, which include: scientific and reasonable online English learning standard environment, appropriate guidance for autonomous learning, reasonable organization of online teaching methods, effective communication among learners and teachers’ timely and effective evaluation and feedback, as well as other incentive measures.