Following Alice’s comments on less/fewer I’m championing correct use of the word its – which possibly leads to the most incidents of apostrophe abuse on the planet.

I’ve seen newspapers fall into the its/it’s trap, frequent examples of my sons’ teachers getting it wrong and clients regularly insert an inaccurate apostrophe into the word when reading through copy I have written for them.

I confess that I used to get it wrong too until it was drummed into me –  literally, with a ruler over the head – by a tutor at journalism school.
In a nutshell, an apostrophe should only be used with the word “it” to indicate a contraction of “it is” or it has.”

You don’t need to use an apostrophe to indicate the possessive because its is a possessive pronoun (along with his, hers, yours, ours, theirs).

For instance then, a sentence could read: “Ideas Shop, it’s a great place to work and dedicated to its clients’ needs.”

For further reference see the witty and helpful apostrophe website www.humbleapostrophe.com