There are quite a few ways pros can spot amateur writers. Spelling is not such a tell anymore, since software programs started doing the proofing for us. Anyone smart enough to blog is smart enough to run the spellcheck, right? But the checker usually passes over legitimate words, regardless of whether the usage is right. Misspelling it's/its is a classic. I once worked for a hardass who promised copyeditors they would be canned on the spot for confusing it's/its. He was a weird guy, but no one ever got it wrong after hearing that speech. Since then, anyone I hired for an editing job heard about that editor and his rule. That worked, too.
Remember it this way: Its is the possessive. So the "it" keeps the "s" close, being possessive (no giggling please). It's, the contraction, is the other one. I always stop a nano-second and read that word back to myself, as "It is." No matter how long you've been writing, no matter how well you know the rule, your fingers are itching to get it wrong.
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