"make install" isn't really needed as you can run the program that can be found in the build directory.
I have been using "checkinstall make install". from the build directory, note that Checkinstall seems to take the name of the currently working directory as the package name, so if you normally make directories named as "build" just to compile things, them you'll sooner or later end up with package conflicts, and believe me, I have seen many compilation instructions do so, probably they don't care because they don't instruct the user to use "checkinstall make install" but just "make install".
