Software solution providers face numerous pitfalls when using standardized SOA-based solutions. Once cause for pitfalls is variability between customer organizations. For example, in local e-government, variability occurs because of the autonomy of municipalities when implementing national laws. This autonomy results in variations in business processes in different municipalities, which then cause variability in information systems that implement business processes. In this article we report pitfalls that we observed in Dutch e-government, an example of a variability-intensive environment. Furthermore, we present best practices that help deal with these pitfalls and organize the best practices in an architecture pattern. Applying the pattern in more than 20 Dutch municipalities led to successful SOA implementations. As pitfalls are not only applicable to e-government, the proposed pattern can also be applied in other domains to deal with the pitfalls.