If you just do a ./configure && make && make install with no arguments you will get the command-line php interpreter installed in /usr/local/bin

Normally you will want to build the DSO (Dynamic Shared Object) Apache Module version of PHP and you will probably want to link against your own MySQL client libraries: 

% ./configure --with-apxs=/usr/sbin/apxs --with-mysql=/usr
% make
% make install
Typical configure flags
./configure --with-pdflib=/usr/local \
            --with-gd \
            --with-freetype-dir=/usr \
            --enable-gd-native-ttf \
            --enable-gd-imgstrttf \
            --with-jpeg-dir=/usr \
            --with-png-dir=/usr \
            --with-xpm-dir=/usr/X11R6 \
            --enable-exif \
            --with-config-file-path=/etc \
            --with-mysql=/usr \
            --enable-inline-optimization \
            --with-zlib \
            --with-zlib-dir=/usr \
            --with-expat=/usr \
            --enable-xslt \
            --with-xslt-sablot=/usr/local \
            --with-imap \
            --with-gettext \
            --with-kerberos \
            --with-imap-ssl \
            --with-mcrypt=/usr/local \
            --with-ldap \
            --with-pspell \
            --with-iconv \
            --with-ming \
            --enable-sockets \
            --with-openssl \
            --with-apxs