User blog comment:SharkMoon6621/Smithing!!!/@comment-199.79.168.163-20130318162708

An interesting thing that I've noticed is that the direct amount of gold from the finished product affects the amount of experience you can gain.

For instance, an Iron Dagger (off the top of my head) can sell for roughly 10gp, and is fairly cheap for one iron ingot, and a leather strip, making it very cheap. HOWEVER, an alternative method for levling up your smithing may be to hold out until you've found the 'Transmute Ore' Alteration Spell, a copy of which I believe can be found in a bandit camp to the north of Whiterun (it's name escapes me at the momet) You can level up both alteration by using the spell, and create gold ingots, which, at only one gold ingot, you can create gold rings, each worth 75gp, and you get TWO.

So, with that in mind, although you need to be patient, the payoff is far greater, as an iron dagger weighs 1 pound, as opposed to the 0.2 pounds the rings will weigh you down, including the higher return rate you recieve from smithing them!